Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max review
Pricing
Introduction
With the Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max, our collection is finally complete. It is the biggest, heaviest, most powerful, and most feature-rich iPhone Apple has made so far, and that’s enough to make it the best-seller it was designed to become.
The new iPhone 12 Pro Max is the only member of Series 12 to pack the new and improved triple-camera on the back. This might be even enough to entice users who may not even be after the Max size. That is how a proper upgrade should be done — by updating every aspect possible, not just the design.
iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPhone 12 Pro
The iPhone 12 Pro’s Max denomination isn’t standing just for maximum size, but for the complete set of new features. The biggest iPhone to date enjoys the most premium and durable design Apple has ever made, the most powerful chip with 5G support, the latest Apple camera, the LiDAR scanner, the largest speakers, the beefiest battery, and, of course, MagSafe support.
Apple iPhone 12 family
This Max version could have been even better with a 120Hz display, but, alas, this feature didn’t make the cut on Series 12. Maybe next year, who knows, but today even the most expensive iPhone can’t show more than 60fps on its screen.
We know you are eager to see the Pro Max’s battery life and camera performance, but first things first. Let’s take a closer look through its specs, shall we?
Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max specs:
- Body: Stainless-steel frame with glossy finish, Ceramic Shield front with oleophobic coating, Glass back with frosted finish, IP68 certified for water and dust resistance. Silver, Graphite, Gold, Pacific Blue color options. 160.8 x 78.1 x 7.4 mm, 228 g.
- Display: 6.7″ Retina XDR OLED screen of 1,284 x 2,778 px resolution, 458ppi, 800 nits, 120Hz touch sensing. HDR10, Dolby Vision support, wide color gamut. True Tone.
- Chipset: Apple A14 Bionic chip (5nm) — Hexa-core (2×3.1 GHz Firestorm + 4×1.8 GHz Icestorm with 3.1GHz Turboboost) Apple CPU, four-core Apple GPU, 16-core Apple NPU 4-gen
- Memory: 6GB of RAM; 128/256/512GB of internal storage
- Rear camera: Triple 12MP camera: Primary — 1.7µm pixels, 26mm, f/1.6, IBIS, Dual Pixel AF; Ultrawide-angle — 1.0µm pixels, 13mm, f/2.4, 120-degree field of view; Telephoto — 1.0µm pixels, 65mm, f/2.2, OIS, 2.5x optical zoom; dual-LED flash with slow sync. Night Mode, Smart HDR 3, Deep Fusion.
- Video recording: 2160p@60/30fps, 1080p@30/60/120/240fps video recording with wider dynamic range and spatial sound, OIS + EIS, Dolby Vision capturing.
- Front camera: Dual camera — 23mm 12MP f/2.2 front-facing camera with HDR mode + 3D TOF camera; Night Mode, Smart HDR 3, Deep Fusion. 2160p@60/30fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps video recording with wider dynamic range and spatial sound, EIS.
- Connectivity: Dual SIM, 5G, 4G; Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac/6; Bluetooth 5.0; Lightning port; GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, QZSS; NFC; Apple U1 chip ultrawideband
- Battery: 3,687 mAh battery, 20W fast charging, 15 Qi wireless charging (MagSafe)
- Misc: Face ID through dedicated TrueDepth camera, stereo speakers, Taptic Engine
The iPhone 12 Pro Max is an upscaled version of the iPhone 12 Pro with a bigger display and battery. It also features a larger 12MP sensor for its primary camera with the industry’s first sensor-shift image stabilization. Finally, its telephoto camera has an even longer-range lens now — 65mm f/2.2 for 2.5x optical zoom. Nice!
Finally, even if the iPhone 12 Pro Max is one of the most expensive phones today, just like the rest of the iPhone 12’s, it also comes accessory-free thanks to Apple’s latest controversial endeavor to save the planet.
Unboxing the iPhone 12 Pro Max
The Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max comes within a thin and lightweight box that contains the phone and a USB-C-to-Lightning cable.
There is no charger or EarPods inside, but you will find a SIM ejection pin and a lonely Apple sticker if you dig deeper. You better hold on to that metal pin, as it might disappear next year, too.
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Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max review
The largest OLED on an iPhone
All iPhone 12s come with Retina XDR OLED screens, starting with the mini and ending with the Max. This year the Pro Max packs an even bigger display within the same body size as the 11 Pro Max.
So, the iPhone 12 Pro Max employs a 6.7″ OLED screen of 1,284 x 2,778 pixels or 458ppi (same sharpness as on 11 Pro Max). It is better-protected courtesy of the new Ceramic Shield, and there are no curved edges whatsoever.
The notch is here to stay, the same size, too. Due to the 12 Pro Max’s relatively big screen, though, the cutout looks smaller here.
The Super Retina XDR OLED screen supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision content. Like the iPhones before the 12th generation, this one also comes with True Tone color tuning, Wide Color support, and it has the Haptic Touch feature providing high-quality touch feedback.
The screen works at a 60Hz refresh rate. Unfortunately, the rumored ProMotion feature didn’t happen, and even the most expensive iPhones are stuck to a 60Hz refresh rate at the end of 2020. C’mon, Apple! Who decided 5G would be the better feature?!
At least the capacitive layer works with a touch sampling rate of 120Hz, making the iPhone display very responsive.
Apple advertises 800 nits of max brightness on the iPhone 12 Pro display and 600 nits for the iPhone 12’s. Both phones offer peak brightness of up to 1,200 nits.
And that’s what the 12 Pro Max screen offers — we measured 822 nits of maximum brightness on the iPhone 12 Pro Max with our particular test setup where a truly white pattern covers 75% of the screen.
There is no maximum auto boost on any iPhone, though you’d never miss that with such a bright screen.
The minimum brightness is impressively low at 2 nits.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, cd/m 2 | White, cd/m 2 | ||
| 0 | 822 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 820 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 802 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 805 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 639 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 627 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 653 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 497 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 802 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 504 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 1024 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 398 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 894 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 538 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 888 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 336 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 532 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 485 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 807 | ∞ | |
The iPhone 12 Pro Max screen offers excellent color accuracy — we measured an average deltaE of 1.8 and a maximum deviation of 2.5 against sRGB targets. The iPhone 12 Pro Max fully supports DCI-P3, and it automatically switches to this color space when DCI-P3 content is sent to the screen.
As usual, the iPhone 12 Pro Max can maintain such a great color accuracy across all brightness levels, even at the lowest point of 2 nits.
Battery life
The Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max is powered by a 3,678 mAh battery — it’s the largest cell among the new iPhones, but about 7% smaller than last year’s 11 Pro Max’s.
The phone supports fast wired and wireless charging, if you purchase the compatible power adapters, that is.
The iPhone 12 Pro Max did great on our battery test — it lasted north of 14 hours on web browsing, more than 15 hours when playing videos, and you can use it for up to 21 hours of talk time.
The standby performance is about the average for this battery size and modem (Apple uses Qualcomm X55). Mixing these results in our magical formula, we ended up with a pretty good endurance rating of 95 hours for the iPhone 12 Pro Max — about 7% lower than the 102h number we got on the 11 Pro Max but still the best among this year’s iPhones.
Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSer App. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We’ve established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you’re interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we’ve tested will compare under your own typical use.
Charging speed
The Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max supports fast battery charging via USB Power Delivery. Apple ships the 12 Pro Max without a charger, but you can opt for Apple’s 20W PD charger or any other 20W+ USB-PD power adapter.
If you recharge your dead iPhone 12 Pro Max with Apple’s 20W charger, it will refill 55% of its battery in 30 mins and 86% in 60 mins.
30min charging test (from 0%)
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
100% - OnePlus 8T
94% - Huawei Mate 40 Pro (66W)
87% - Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra
64% - Apple iPhone 12 mini
60% - Apple iPhone 12 Pro
59% - Apple iPhone 11 Pro
58% - Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max
55% - Apple iPhone 11 (18W)
55% - Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
50% - Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
43% - Apple iPhone 12 mini (MagSafe)
30% - Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max (MagSafe)
28% - 55%» rel=»tooltip»>Apple iPhone XS
22% - Apple iPhone 11 (5W)
18% - 52%» rel=»tooltip»>Apple iPhone XS Max
18%
A full charge with that 20W adapter takes 89 mins. We admire Apple’s consistency with the charging speeds — no matter the battery capacity — we’d get a similar charging level for 30 mins, and a full charge will always take about 90 mins.
Time to full charge (from 0%)
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
0:27h - OnePlus 8T
0:36h - Huawei Mate 40 Pro (66W)
0:45h - Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra
0:58h - Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
1:23h - Apple iPhone 12 mini
1:29h - Apple iPhone 12 Pro
1:30h - Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max
1:32h - Apple iPhone 11 Pro
1:50h - Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
2:00h - Apple iPhone 11 (5W)
4:00h
The iPhone 12 Pro Max supports up to 15W ‘fast’ wireless charging but only when using MagSafe chargers. Other makers already offer north of 40W wireless charging, but we guess 15W is fast in Apple’s terms. And if you opt for a regular Qi-compatible charger, you’ll be limited to 5W-8W or so.
We tested the iPhone 12 Pro Max with Apple’s own MagSafe wireless charger, of course. If the phone is dead — it will take about 5 minutes to wake it up. And then the MagSafe charger would refill 28% of the battery in half an hour. A full charge requires more than 3 hours.
Given the sluggish speed and unreliable charging performance, we don’t see the point of upgrading to this €50 MagSafe wireless charger just yet.
Speakers
The iPhone 12 Pro Max, just like the rest of the iPhone 12s, packs a hybrid stereo speaker setup with spatial audio support. There is one speaker at the bottom and another one inside the screen notch, which also doubles as an earpiece.
The stereo output is reasonably balanced even if the earpiece seems a bit quieter and bass-less if the bottom is muted.
The iPhone 12 Pro Max scored a Very Good mark in our loudness test, and it is on par with the new iPhone 12’s and the 11 Pro Max. The audio quality is the best among the new iPhones — the 12 Pro Max has the deepest bass and the richest mid-tones, while the high-notes are well presented as good as always.
Long story short, even if the iPhone 12 Pro Max has similar loudness as the rest of Series 12, it offers the best speakers on an iPhone so far and one of the best audio setups we’ve experienced on a smartphone to date.
Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal «0db» flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.
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