While writing the review of this year’s phone and preparing my 16 Pro Max for sale, I decided to write an exit interview. I’ve done it previously for other phones, especially when I forget to write a review (as I’ve done this time).
Design
Let’s get the bad out of the way first. Comparing year over year, the iPhone 15 Pro Max still holds the Best Max Phone trophy in my opinion. It was simply perfect – both in terms of size, but even more importantly, weight. It was beautiful. With the 16 Pro Max, Apple made the Max phone slightly bigger (which is okay) but also a tiny bit heavier. Although on paper it seemed negligible, in use the weight crossed some psychological barrier for me – it became too heavy. Not as bad as the 14 Pro Max, but it seems we took two steps forward with the 15 and one step backward with the 16 Pro Max. I thought I’d get used to it, but I noticed it every day. Before selling my 15 Pro Max, I would hold it in my hands and remember how perfect life was.
The smaller bezels looked amazing in photos after the reveal, but I didn’t notice them at all. Until I did. Sometimes I was reading an article with the screen being all white and had a realization – there’s nothing right after the article. It looks like all screen.
The Desert Titanium color was a miss. I was a huge fan of Natural Titanium, but I always try to go for “this year’s color.” I also loved previous gold phones, but in the end, this wasn’t it. Mostly it was white with a bit of copper. Thankfully it didn’t look brown like rumors suggested before it came out, but it’s definitely boring. Too plain.
Design isn’t only how it looks but how it works, and the 15 Pro Max’s battery life and thermals were an abomination. Apple improved one but not so much the other. While the 15 Pro Max was usually at least warm, the 16 Pro Max was back to normal. It would occasionally heat up, but only during heavy stress, like initial setup or some intensive game. On the battery front, I’m a heavy user of the phone (unfortunately), and even the new 16 Pro Max didn’t last the whole day. It was slightly better than the 15 Pro Max, but not by much. During travel, I would still use a MagSafe Battery. I probably didn’t have a single day where I wouldn’t charge midway through.
Camera
I loved the 5x last year, and it’s still my favorite lens this year. I used Smart Folders in Photos to check, and more than a third of the photos I took with the 15 Pro Max were taken with the 5x lens. It just works for me. I’d give up the ultra-wide if there were a choice between the two. Speaking of which, there was a lot of talk about improvements to the 0.5x camera, but I hardly noticed any. It’s still very average, so I rarely use it.
In the end, I loved the 5x but wanted a bit more quality.
Camera don’t-call-it-a-button Control
I think Apple has a hit on its hands, but they tried to do too much. They should’ve just started with a button. That’s actually how I use it – as a button to launch the camera. I don’t even use it to take photos because it shakes the phone too much. Maybe the problem is with the way I hold the phone or press the button, but I couldn’t change it.
All those in-camera features are just too much. For example, when you use it for lens switching, it’s harder than tapping the screen, but if you try to scroll, it’s not precise enough for that. A lot of features seem to be there just for the sake of it. I turned it all off.
It’s just perfect for launching the camera. That allowed me to change one of the two Lock Screen controls.
Conclusion
Overall, the 16 Pro Max was an okay phone. There are both pluses and minuses, but I still like the 15 Pro Max more, just because of the weight and how it felt. It was perfect. After a year with the 16 Pro Max, I started considering going back to the smaller, Pro-sized phone again.
If not for the improved battery and thermals, I would’ve been really upset about upgrading. This was the one to skip.
