iPhone 16 Pro Max - My Initial Review!
Summary
TLDRIn this review, the user shares their experience with the iPhone 16 Pro Max in Desert Titanium, comparing it to the iPhone 15 Pro Max. While impressed with its larger 6.9-inch display and smoother back texture, they encountered issues during setup and were disappointed with the new camera control button's functionality. Minor improvements include a brighter display and slightly enhanced low-light photography, but many new features, such as Apple Intelligence, are delayed. Overall, the user feels the iPhone 16 Pro Max offers marginal upgrades, leaving them underwhelmed.
Takeaways
- đ± The user has been using the iPhone 16 Pro Max in desert titanium due to a delay in receiving the black unit.
- đïž The phone feels slightly bigger than the iPhone 15 Pro Max but not uncomfortably so, with a smoother back texture.
- â ïž The setup process for transferring data from the 15 Pro Max was glitchy, requiring multiple attempts to complete.
- âšïž Typing on the wider display is easier, but the haptics feel weaker and less uniform compared to the 15 Pro Max.
- đž The camera control button is poorly placed and awkward to use one-handed, though it offers quick camera launch capabilities.
- đ· Daytime photos on the iPhone 16 Pro Max show minimal improvement over the 15 Pro Max, but night shots are slightly sharper with less noise.
- đ The bezels are thinner on the desert titanium model, but this is mainly due to the frame's visibility and may appear thicker on the black version.
- đ Battery life is noticeably better, offering around a 20% improvement over the 15 Pro Max.
- đ„ The 4K 120 FPS video mode has limitations, such as only working with the main lens and causing flickering in some scenarios.
- đ€ Features like Apple intelligence and visual intelligence are delayed and will not be available until 2025, making the phone feel incomplete at launch.
Q & A
What is the user's main issue with the iPhone 16 Pro Max's camera control button placement?
-The user finds the camera control button placement to be too low, making it uncomfortable to reach when using the phone in portrait mode and requiring an awkward grip in landscape mode.
How does the iPhone 16 Pro Max's haptic feedback on the keyboard compare to the iPhone 15 Pro Max?
-The haptic feedback on the iPhone 16 Pro Max's keyboard is weaker and softer due to the addition of an extra haptic engine for the camera control button, which the user prefers less than the haptic response on the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
What is the user's opinion on the bezels of the iPhone 16 Pro Max?
-The user notices that the bezels are incredibly thin, but the appearance of their thinness is affected by the color of the phone, with the desert titanium version making them appear even thinner due to the visible frame.
How does the user feel about the iPhone 16 Pro Max's responsiveness compared to the iPhone 15 Pro Max?
-The user finds the iPhone 16 Pro Max to be notably more responsive, especially when launching apps through Spotlight search.
What was the user's experience with the setup process of the iPhone 16 Pro Max?
-The setup process was not great for the user, as it kept failing and freezing during the camera control setup, requiring multiple restarts and data transfer attempts.
How does the user describe the feel of the iPhone 16 Pro Max in hand compared to the iPhone 15 Pro Max?
-The user feels that the iPhone 16 Pro Max is bigger but not as big and uncomfortable as expected, and it feels marginally bigger coming from the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
What is the user's view on the new photographic Styles feature on the iPhone 16 Pro Max?
-The user views the new photographic Styles as a software feature that is mostly the same as on the iPhone 15 Pro, with the addition of adjustable color intensity.
What is the user's opinion on the new 4K 120 FPS video mode on the iPhone 16 Pro Max?
-The user is not a fan of the new 4K 120 FPS video mode due to its limitations, such as not being able to switch lenses and the large file sizes it produces.
How does the user feel about the improvements in the iPhone 16 Pro Max's camera compared to the iPhone 15 Pro Max?
-The user is disappointed with the camera improvements, noting that they are very minor and mostly related to image processing tweaks.
What is the user's take on the iPhone 16 Pro Max's battery life compared to the iPhone 15 Pro Max?
-The user has noticed a rough 20% improvement in battery life on the iPhone 16 Pro Max, which they consider to be a positive aspect of the new phone.
Outlines
đ± First Impressions of the iPhone 16 Pro Max
The user discusses their initial experiences with the iPhone 16 Pro Max, specifically the desert titanium model, explaining that they had to use it due to delays with their black unit. The user notes mixed feelingsâimpressed in some areas but disappointed in others. They first touch on the size, which feels marginally larger than the 15 Pro Max but still manageable. The setup process was frustrating due to glitches during data transfer, which took multiple attempts. However, once setup was complete, the 16 Pro Max felt faster and more responsive than the 15 Pro Max, especially in tasks like typing and app launching. Although the typing experience is generally improved due to the wider display, the haptics feel less uniform and weaker compared to the 15 Pro Max.
đž Mixed Feelings About the Camera Control Button
The user highlights both the pros and cons of the new camera control button on the iPhone 16 Pro Max. On one hand, it allows for quick camera access with a single press, making it faster than the previous action button. However, the placement of the button feels uncomfortable, especially in portrait mode, requiring awkward finger movements. While the physical click of the button is appreciated, the force-touch feature (used for zoom and other settings) is less intuitive and slower than using the touchscreen directly. The user finds that the camera control button can be gimmicky for camera settings but useful for quickly launching the camera.
đ· Disappointment with Camera Performance and Software Features
The user expresses disappointment with the camera performance of the iPhone 16 Pro Max, noting minimal improvements despite Apple's claims. Daytime photos look almost identical to the previous generation, with only minor differences in processing. Nighttime shots are slightly better, showing less noise, but these improvements are subtle. The ultra-wide camera has seen negligible changes, and in some cases, even performs worse in low-light conditions. The new 4K 120 FPS mode is also underwhelming, with issues like flickering and large file sizes. The user is frustrated that many features, such as Apple Intelligence, are delayed and won't be available until mid-2025.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄiPhone 16 Pro Max
đĄDesert Titanium
đĄCamera Control Button
đĄDisplay Size
đĄHaptic Feedback
đĄBezels
đĄPWM (Pulse Width Modulation)
đĄ4K 120 FPS Video Mode
đĄPhotographic Styles
đĄApple Intelligence
Highlights
iPhone 16 Pro Max feels bigger than the iPhone 15 Pro Max, but not as uncomfortable as expected.
The setup process for the iPhone 16 Pro Max was problematic, requiring multiple attempts to transfer data.
The 16 Pro Max is notably more responsive in launching apps compared to the 15 Pro Max.
Typing experience is improved on the 16 Pro Max due to the wider display, but haptic feedback is weaker compared to the 15 Pro Max.
Bezels on the 16 Pro Max are thinner, but appear even more so on the Desert Titanium version due to the frame visibility.
The 16 Pro Max has a dimmer display in low-light conditions, making it easier on the eyes when reading at night.
Camera control button placement is problematic, especially in one-handed use and landscape mode.
Camera control button allows for quick camera access, but its additional functionality, such as force clicks, is awkward to use.
Despite hardware improvements, the iPhone 16 Pro Max camera produces similar results to the 15 Pro Max in daylight shots.
Night shots show some improvements with sharper images and less noise, though changes are minor.
4K 120 FPS video mode disables lens switching and results in large file sizes, making it less practical for regular use.
New photographic styles allow post-capture adjustments, but are mostly a software feature locked to the iPhone 16.
Audio mixing in video recording offers improved background noise management in public settings.
Apple Intelligence, a key feature promoted for the iPhone 16, is missing at launch and will be available in mid-2025.
Battery life on the 16 Pro Max shows a 20% improvement over the 15 Pro Max, making it a notable enhancement.
Transcripts
okay so I've been using the iPhone 16
Pro Max in desert titanium since last
week hold on why not black well it's
simply because my black unit is delayed
but yeah to be honest in some cases I'm
pretty impressed however in other cases
I am quite disappointed and I'll tell
you all about it right after our sponsor
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in the video okay so I'm someone who's
coming from a 15 Pro Max and literally
the first thing that I've noticed was
how the 16 Pro Max felt in my hands like
it feels bigger for sure but not as big
and uncomfortable as I thought it would
like don't get me wrong this is a pretty
big phone as you can probably see and
now it's even bigger with its larger 6.9
in display to the point where just like
the 15 Pro Max whenever I sit down I
have to take it out of my jeans pocket
otherwise it just ends up pressing on my
leg especially when I'm wearing jeans
with shorter Pockets but coming from the
15 Pro Max the 16 Pro Max is obably
marginally bigger so I do think that
most 15 Pro Max users will still be fine
here now something else that I've
noticed immediately was that I think
Apple changed the texture on the back at
least the 16 Pro Max feels a bit
smoother which I personally do prefer
compared to the 15 Pro Max it kind of
reminds me of that super smooth glass
back of the pixel 4 XL from back in the
day so that's the feel in the hand but
what's it like using it well my
experience setting it up was not great
the setup process actually kept failing
it essentially got stuck during the
camera control setup and literally froze
the phone entirely requiring me to
restart it and whenever I did restart it
it would start the whole data transfer
process from scratch which also kept
getting stuck so it literally took me
five attempts before I was able to
transfer my data from my 15 Pro Max to
the 16 Pro Max something that I don't
remember ever being an issue before yeah
I feel like Apple's software is becoming
more and more glitch recently but anyway
once I did get it to work the 16 Pro Max
did feel notably more responsive than my
15 Pro Max did I've got a tendency to
launch my apps through SPO fight search
and just doing that filed way faster on
the 16 Pro Max compared to the 15 Pro
Max and everything else did as well
typing oh and speaking of typing I did
find the typing experience to be both
better and worse on the 16 Pro Max since
the display is a bit wider I actually
find it easier to type on the 16 Pro Max
like my fingers are just less crammed
than on the 15 Pro Max so I was able to
type even faster on the 16 Pro Max
compared to the 15 Pro Max the part
where the typing experience is worse has
to do with haptics because of the camera
control button Apple added an extratic
engine on the right hand side and
because of that they did tweak the
heptic response of the keyboard so I
have found the haptics on the keyboard
to be more un uniform than on the 15 Pro
Max they are for some reason
considerably weaker and softer so I
actually much prefer the hatic respawns
on the 15 Pro Max from before now aside
from the keyboard something else that I
immedately noticed when using it were
the bezels the bezels are indeed
incredibly thin you can see it here with
my groovy gradients wallpaper from our
app wallpapers link down below however
since my 15 Pro Max was the Black
Version and now I'm using the this
titanium they appear to be even thinner
because the frame is partially visible
when you view the phone from the top
therefore a black frame does actually
make the bezels look even thicker than
they are so when I get my actual 16 Pro
Max that I'll be using longterm the
Black Version the bezels won't be as
thin as they do appear on this desert
titanium 16 Pro Max that being said
reading and watching content on the 16
Pro Max is a very similar experience to
how it felt on the 15 Pro Max I noticed
one or maybe two extra lines of text but
basically just that so not huge
difference what I have noticed though
was that minimum one knit of brightness
I actually did some reading at night in
bed in Pitch Black and the 16 Pro Max
was Far dimmer which I did find easier
on my eyes I didn't really test it
extensively to say if the pwm dimming
caused me any I strain or not the 15 Pro
Max did slightly but the Oto magic V2
did not which did have 3,840 HZ pwm
which made it flicker less and hence it
was the easiest on my eyes at night yeah
it's unclear what sort of pwm the 16 Pro
Max has the XOM Mark will for sure be
giving us some insight soon and this
brings me to the camera control the
change that I was excited for the most
in the entire iPhone 16 lineup we showed
this in our leaks rers videos in
Concepts and dumb units and I was genely
hyped for this but after using it I've
been left very disappointed here's the
thing the placement is not great it's
far too low which means that when I'm
using the iPhone in portrait mode I need
to do these finger gymnastics to be able
to reach it and when I'm using it a
landscape I need to hold it like this to
take the shot which is not very
comfortable of course I can always you
know hold it in two hands but yeah I'm
just referring to the one-handed
usability here now I didn't really feel
as uncomfortable on the dumb units but
these things were of course much lighter
now what I do really like about a camera
control is how quickly I can launch the
camera I literally just press it once
and then boom I'm in the camera app the
action button was not only in a much
worse placement but you also had to hold
it to launch the camera so it was far
slow lower this also means that we've
now got four ways of launching the
camera from the lock screen the camera
control the action button the lock
screen button and then of course also
swiping to the left although everything
else aside from the camera control and
the swiping gesture can be remapped to
something else I also like that it
physically clicks something that I was
not expecting but I am glad to see this
which means that even when you're
wearing gloves you'll still be able to
press it and quickly launch the camera
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let's talk about what I don't like about
the camera control and there's a lot
here but it basically boils down to its
additional functionality the idea here
is that you press it a bit but not
enough to trigger a physical click and
that's when you'll trigger the force
click Now by default this lets you zoom
in and out uh but then if you double
first click you can actually switch
between different settings that you can
and then adjust like for example the
Styles more on that later however there
are three major problems here number one
the force click is really weird since
you always need to make sure that you're
not pressing hard enough to activate the
physical click and getting that right
level pressure can be tricky by the way
I found that if you go into the
accessibility settings and then camera
control you can actually adjust this
from a lighter pressure to a firm
pressure although no matter what I've
tried I just couldn't get that feeling
to feel right to me then my second issue
is that for whatever reason you cannot
simply just swipe on it you have to
force touch now I actually took a photo
you have to force touch and then swipe
on it which makes it so much slower to
use at least by default now you can
enable this in the accessibility
settings you can actually enable this
swipe so now if I go into the camera now
I should be able to just swipe and there
we go it works but to be honest this is
so glitch like most of the times it just
doesn't even work the third problem and
this is really the biggest one is that
you can literally use a the touchcreen
for all of this like you don't need to
use the camera control at all and just
using the touch screen is so much faster
additionally if you go into settings
then camera and then you go to camera
control you can actually disable
something called clean preview this is
with clean preview enabled and this is
without as you can see with clean
preview enabled your controls will go
away but if you disable it then even
when the zoom feature is active you can
still use the onscreen buttons to zoom
in and out something that that is just
miles faster and also far more
comfortable so is the camera control a
gimmick then well not entirely for me
when it comes to controlling your camera
settings yes it is a gimmick but where I
do find it really useful is for
launching the camera as for that it is
literally the fastest method of doing so
plus you can also sign different camera
apps to launch when you press the camera
control button so for example you can
set headlights launch so that's when you
press the camera control button there
you go Allied launches and then you can
still have the action button set to
launch the default camera app so you can
have two different Hardware methods of
launching two different camera apps if
you're you know a heavy photographer or
if you post on Instagram a lot you can
even set Instagram to launch when you
press the capture button but like I said
my main use case for this is to just
launch the camera as I would be using
the touchcreen for everything else
including by the way for the capture
buttons controls yes you can use the
touchcreen for that as well okay now
let's talk about the camera and here I'm
pretty dis disappointed as I was
honestly expecting more you see although
Apple said that the iPhone 16 pro and
pro Max have a new main sensor that's
faster I haven't noticed any major
improvements in the end result at least
when it comes to the daytime shots as
they look exactly the same as before
occasionally there were some minor
processing differences where the 16 Pro
was a bit darker but for the most part
the photos were pretty much identical
sometimes even blurrier on the 16 Pro
nighttime shots do see some improvements
with the 16 Pro Max being sharper and
also with less noise in both the sky and
the texture of some buildings although
the differences are quite minor and to
me this looks to be mostly image
processing tweaks the telephoto is
literally the same as before at least at
lower Zoom levels at higher Zoom levels
like 20x or 30X it looks like apple has
tweaked the processing a bit to actually
make the end result clear now I did have
high hopes for the new 48 megapix Ultra
wide however it is exactly the same in
its default 12 megapixel mode least in
fact it seems to be even slightly
noisier than the 15 Pro max if anything
and at night the 16 Pro Max's Ultra wide
was even worse as it was quite a bit
softer like the only place where I've
noticed an improvement was when
specifically shooting in the 48
megapixel mode it was sharper there
although definitely not four times
sharper and also when taking macro
photos which were sharper thanks to the
exra resolution and also less noisy so
in some cases this was actually a pretty
noticeable Improvement in others it was
just slightly slightly better uh but
yeah that's that's it when it comes to
the main camera Hardware changes very
very very minor improvements now I've
also tried the new 4k 120 FPS video mode
but uh I'm not actually a fan of it
because number one if you enable it you
can no longer switch between your lenses
you can only do that on the main one
number two in some cases I've actually
noticed some severe flickering which was
not the case in 4k 60 and three the file
size is are just huge so yeah I'll be
sticking with 4K 160 I've also played
around with the new photographic Styles
a bit I mean really for the most part
these are just the same ones as on the
iPhone 15 Pro but with the ability to
now adjust the color intensity The Tint
was already possible to adjust before so
yeah this is purely a software feature
that Apple locked to the iPhone 16s
instead possibly to give them an extra
camera selling points the only thing
that makes them more different in my
opinion is that you can apply them after
the fact whereas on the 15 Pro they had
to be selected during capture but that's
it I've also tried the new audio mixing
feature which this one was by the way
pretty cool and quite good when
recording in a public setting with a lot
of background noise okay so this is a
test of the audio on the new iPhone 16
Pro so this is the audio mixing feature
and we're actually going to switch
between the audio mode so that you guys
can hear what each audio mode sounds
like so let me know uh what do you guys
think which one is the best I think
studio is probably the best so in
conclusion after spending about a week
with the iPhone 16 Pro Max I am honestly
quite disappointed and also bored the
camera is pretty much the same 4K 120 is
not something that I would be using on a
regular basis the camera control button
has a very poor implementation with some
features like touch to focus and visual
intelligence even missing entirely and
coming later and speaking of things
coming later Apple intelligence you know
the feature that Apple has been
promoting the most about all this phone
that's also missing and coming later in
fact even when I went to the Apple Store
some Apple employees were telling
customers that Apple intelligence was
the main key selling feature on the
iPhone 16 and that it was so exciting to
have it and you know witness it but when
these people actually buy the iPhone 16
they won't even have apple intelligence
until at least a month from now and
that's only for the writing tools and
the more you know basic AI features the
big ones like series contextual
awareness that's only coming out in mid
2025 and not even all regions will be
supported by the way so I don't know I
just think the iPhone 16 is an
incomplete phone and just the same again
like the only thing that's not the same
for me at least I would say is the
battery life where I've noticed a rough
20% improvement over my 15 Pro Max which
is pretty good by the way but other than
that uh yeah it's the 15 Pro Max all
over again with some minor changes but
what do you guys think let me know down
below and feel free to continue this
conversation on our Discord and check
out some awesome cool wallpapers uh from
our app linked down below Daniel S and
I'll see you guys in the next one out
cheers
[Music]
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