We can see, first of all, that the case of the iPhone 12 Pro Max is much thinner and lighter than its predecessors, since Apple only supplies a C to Lightning cable in the box.
This has also caused much contention in the marketplace in recent years. For the iPhone 12 series, Apple has not equipped these phones with a box charger, and users will have to buy additional accessories or use existing accessories.
Design
Although the iPhone 12 Pro Max is the largest and heaviest phone that Apple has ever produced, the phone does not feel bulky. It rather feels very elegantly designed, making users more enthusiastic about the product.
The design of the iPhone 12 Pro Max is similar to that of the iPhone 12 Pro but just slightly longer. Before adopting this phone, users should get a feel for how it holds in hand.
Tech junkies and Apple fans in general will have no trouble identifying that the Phone 12 Pro Max borrowed the design cues from Apple iPhone 5 product line.
The 12 Pro Max shields its front with Ceramic Shield, also popularly known as ceramic shield; the bezel is polished .stainless steel, and Gorilla Glass covers the back. The phone is rated IP68 for water resistance.
Ceramic Shield represents a big technological advancement for Apple and Corning. The presence of ceramic crystals in the protective glass will greatly strengthen the phone, thus lowering the chance of breakage of the display screen.
A favorite design aspect on the iPhone 12 Pro Max is the edge structure. Having a premium look, this steel frame makes the phone appear elegantly crafted. But the bezel has its own shortcomings in terms of ease of scratching, and this is quite noticeable especially in the white version. To add to this, the frame is a sucker for fingerprints.
The other downside of the frame, when using it, is that steel is quite slippery and makes it difficult for users to lift the phone off any tiled surface. Therefore, in such a case, the case accessory becomes a must-have but would take away the beauty of the iPhone-12-Pro-Max.
The back uses translucent, flat glass; not overly ostentatious but definitely good-looking in a way that users can find very gentle when passing their fingers across this surface. It, however, has a downside as it is slippery, just like the bezel.
The beautiful appearance is due to the 6.7-inch Retina XDR OLED display in front of it. The notch is the same as that of the last full-screen iPhones; edges appear smaller than that of the Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max.
The volume keys and the silent button , plus the SIM slot at the bottom are on the left side. Meanwhile, it also has a stereo speaker and a Lightning port on the bottom edge. The power key of the device is sitting on the right side.
The dimensions of the iPhone 12 Pro Max are 160.8 x 78.1 x 7.4mm, and yep it’s 3mm more thick, and also 2g more weighty than the iPhone 11 Pro Max.
Overall, the iPhone 12 Pro Max looks pretty elegant and solid, but when you keep holding it, it can still feel a bit tricky. Users can fix this sort of thing at the time of purchase by getting a case, basically a protective cover.
Screen
All four smartphone models are equipped with Apple Retina XDR OLED; from the Apple iPhone 12 Mini to the company’s iPhone 12 Pro Max, they somehow all bring up comparisons with each other. Pro Max is, after all , the iPhone with the largest OLED screen, so you kind of feel it right away.
A 1284 x 2778 OLED panel covers the 6.7 inch area. It sure has the same notch as the previous model, but it feels smaller because that giant screen kind of swallows everything else.
The Super Retina XDR OLED display also supports HDR 10 and Dolby Vision, and it does the usual iPhone things too. Like other iPhones, the 12 Pro Max includes True Tone color adjustment, Wide Color support, and a Haptic Touch feature that gives a premium touch response, not just a plain buzz or something.
Apple has kept the 120Hz refresh rate as a kind of exclusive, for princely iPhones, meaning it is turned back down to a 60Hz refresh rate on-board in the iPhone 12 Pro Max.
The peak brightness is rated as 800 nits, whilst the maximum is 1200 nits, whereas the lowest brightness of the device is two nits for Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max.
The battery
Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max has a battery capacity of 3678 mAh, so inside the iPhone 12 family it really is the heavy hitter for power, you know. Yet when you put it right up against the iPhone 11 Pro Max, it ends up about 7% lower, not enormous or anything, but you still notice that drop though.
And based on just a single battery check, the 12 Pro Max can run roughly 14 hours for web browsing, around 15 hours for steady video playback, and something like 21 hours for phone calls. Overall it feels pretty dependable, honestly.
Charging speed-wise, the handset supports fast charging via USB Power Delivery or something pretty close to that. Also, Apple didn’t really include a charger in the box with the iPhone 12 Pro Max so you’ll have to get one yourself. You can grab a 20W charger separately though.
In terms of the charge timeline, from 0% to 55% it takes about 30 minutes, then you’re looking at around 60 minutes to reach 86%. After that the full 100% charge lands at roughly 89 minutes, give or take a little depending on conditions. Apple basically keeps the charging pace hovering near that 90 minute point, more or less , regardless of the battery size.
The device also features fast wireless charging capability of 15W, but only when using Apple’s MagSafe charger. For Qi chargers, the power will be reduced to a range of 5W-8W.
When charging iPhone 12 Pro Max using MagSafe wireless charger, it took around 30 minutes to charge 28% of the battery and to be fully charged by using this device is more than 3 hours. Not that great performance, so one must keep it in mind while using this accessory with the charger.
LiDAR sensor
LiDAR is a new technology with an outstanding achievement that Apple has brought using laser distance detection and measurement over the past year. After iPad Pro 2020, iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max are the next devices to use this technology.
The LiDAR scanner measures distance by firing a laser beam with a dedicated sensor, providing very precise numbers. In this way, the phone can be used in design areas, such as creating 3D representations of furniture arrangements in a room.
Thanks to the powerful AR capabilities of LiDAR, users can also have a great AR experience with compatible apps and games.
Another benefit of this technology is that it helps the camera focus faster in low light. Because the sensor used is not affected by lighting conditions, users can take low-light portraits with excellent image quality and background separation.
Performance and benchmarks
Each iPhone launched will be accompanied by Apple’s most advanced processor chip at the moment, and with 12 Pro Max, it is the Apple A14 Bionic processor. That is the world’s first 5nm processor chip.
Chip A14 has a 6-core processor, with a pair of larger Firestorm cores running at 3.1 GHz, and four smaller Icestorm cores that work at 1.8 GHz, and with TurboBoost it can push back up to around 3.1 GHz when it is really needed.
The A14 Bionic model also includes Qualcomm’s X55 5G modem, so yes, that is basically why the whole iPhone 12 lineup supports 5G connectivity.
Plus 6GB of RAM, the A14 Bionic chip is what helps the iPhone 12 turn into the fastest computing phone on the market, which Apple keeps chasing, in almost every iPhone launch.
Thanks to the extremely good cooling system, users can completely have a great experience in gaming tasks.
Camera
iPhone 12 Pro Max owns three 12MP cameras on the back, similar to iPhone 12 Pro and 11 Pro but with more impressive hardware features. One of them can be mentioned, the LiDAR scanner that supports autofocus and provides more realistic portraits.
The 12MP main camera on the iPhone 12 Pro Max is much improved. One of them is sensor-shift stabilization instead of optical stabilization. This feature reduces shake by moving the entire sensor and will outperform the optics in low-light shots, allowing for longer shutter speeds.
Although the ultra-wide camera has not been improved too much, the telephoto camera on the iPhone 12 Pro Max is different. Apple has equipped this lens with a longer zoom range, providing 2.5x optical zoom.
Image quality
The main camera on iPhone 12 Pro Max can save 12MP photos with pretty decent quality. At first glance these pictures look no different from what you get on iPhone 12 Pro, but when you peer closer, you notice more contrast less contrast (yes, it kind of shifts), accurate white balance, and truer colors.
Still, the camera processing is not fully polished, because with some busy or complicated objects, the image can end up slightly blurred, like it can’t quite decide.
Meanwhile, photos from the ultra-wide camera have excellent quality and a really impressive spread width. This also helps with image editing, so details stay in place instead of smearing away.
With the telephoto camera, the level of detail is very impressive too. And the contrast, color quality, and white balance are handled well by Apple.
When you’re shooting in low light, Night mode kinda kicks in automatically, and users should turn it off manually if they do not want to use it. The iPhone 12 Pro exposure time is pretty good too, more or less around 2–3s, depending on the scene.
Without Night Mode, the main camera on the iPhone 12 Pro Max still delivers a pretty impressive image quality, even if the lighting is not helping.
The ultra-wide camera on the iPhone 12 can produce photos with solid exposure quality, well restored highlights, bringing out more detail and keeping that softness, pretty well overall. Users should not turn off Night Mode when using the ultra-wide-angle camera because image details will be poor and colors are no longer true.
As for the telephoto camera, sometimes this lens works in low light conditions. In necessary cases, the iPhone 12 Pro Max will use the main camera for digital zoom because Night Mode is not available on the zoom camera.
The quality of the zoomed images is excellent, with maximum noise reduction and natural color retention. The zoomed image can still enable Night Mode even though the telephoto camera doesn’t support it because the iPhone 12 Pro Max will use the main camera to zoom.
Default by the telephoto camera takes portrait images on Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max. Still, users can switch to shooting with the main camera whenever they need a wider angle. LiDAR scanner will greatly assist in this feature.
Not only own great portraits in well-lit conditions, but LiDAR is also very productive to bring out the perfect image in low-light conditions.
The selfie photos taken with the 12 Pro Max have excellent quality, impressive details, and high contrast; true colors and noise are handled very well.
Ending
iPhone 12 Pro Max is, in a way, Apple’s most powerful iPhone on the market today. The strong points of this device are its luxurious design, a great display, a powerful processor, and impressive picture quality so to speak.
That said, there are a few aspects that could make some users not be satisfied, notably that Apple does not include chargers and headphones in the box. Also, some improvements feel less remarkable compared to iPhone 11 Pro Max, it’s sort of like incremental rather than something totally new.
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Tech Reviewer & Product Analyst
Định Bia has spent over 10 years testing consumer electronics with a focus on smart technology. He work as a product advisor at Biareview where he helped customers find the right devices for their needs. He personally tests every product featured on this site using a consistent evaluation framework covering quality, durability, and value. All reviews are based on experience, not influenced by the manufacturer.
