- 1 day ago
iPhone 17 Pro Review: Paradox in a Box
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CreativityTranscript
00:00The best thing about the iPhone Air is actually how much it seems to have freed Apple up to
00:06make the pro phones even more pro.
00:39Have you noticed that these new pro phones are thicker than last year, more room inside
00:45for bigger batteries and a vapor chamber and a bigger camera.
00:48It's not quite on the level of the ultra phones, but this is the most maximalist that
00:54an iPhone has ever felt.
00:56And I like it.
00:57But also, let me let you in on a little not so secret secret.
01:01The pro phone is always the best selling one.
01:05Like this year, the iPhone Air is the most interesting and it's getting the most YouTube
01:09clicks and the most views.
01:10But then the base 17 is more than ever the one that most people should get and the best
01:16deal.
01:17But it turns out the pro max specifically by far is the most popular by sales numbers.
01:23I was going to try to find a way to show you guys this.
01:25You know, channel sponsor dbrand, they make a accessory for every single model of iPhone.
01:31And so their sales distributions kind of match Apple's.
01:35And this is a distribution this year.
01:38Over half are pro maxes.
01:41And between the two pros, that's like 90% of orders.
01:44So yeah, it's fun to watch Apple kind of walk this line between being a more pro phone than
01:49ever before and this maximalist new design and everything they're doing, but also being
01:54literally the most mainstream phone of all time.
01:57Like the cameras.
01:58Might as well start there, right?
01:59The cameras are the most pro thing about the pro iPhone every year.
02:04And on one hand, no professional would say, Oh yeah, thank gosh, I have eight lenses now
02:09in my smartphone.
02:10Like Apple seems to want us to believe it clearly has three, but the three cameras you get are
02:17more evenly matched than ever.
02:18The primary and ultra wide are essentially unchanged from last year, but the telephoto gets a big
02:23update.
02:23It's now also a 48 megapixel camera and it's a 4X telephoto lens.
02:28Last year was a 5X, but only 12 megapixels.
02:31So this new one feels like a more natural portrait focal length.
02:35It's roughly a hundred millimeter equivalent and all of your zoom shots will have much more
02:39detail and much less noise thanks to the sensor being much larger and much higher resolution.
02:45Now I will give them credit for the specific 2X zoom increments because while they are not
02:52actually new lenses, they do specifically process each of the images shot in a 2X crop to be
02:57slightly sharper and better looking than just a pure digital crop on the middle of the sensor.
03:03So, you know, it's not the level of a pure optical zoom, but it's better than nothing.
03:07So I don't know why they only do it at these focal lengths, honestly.
03:10Either way, it's a really nice total package now.
03:13Three matching 48 megapixel cameras, all of which are super reliable, just as good for casual
03:18shooters as they are for people who depend on their iPhone for work.
03:22Or maybe who happen to have an entire YouTube channel about cars that they happen to shoot
03:27all on smartphones.
03:29Ahem.
03:30Yeah.
03:30Electric G-Wagon review coming to autofocus shot on iPhone 17 Pro very soon.
03:34I do still kind of find myself wishing they made some other improvements, like the point
03:39light problem at night when you shoot in the dark and those little flares always show up.
03:43They haven't fixed that at all.
03:44Or even adding 8K video support.
03:47There's a two terabyte iPhone model now.
03:49I feel like 8K video is just a flip of a switch away, but not this year.
03:55But you know, the changes are stacking up nicely over the years from older pro phones,
03:59like the 13 Pro and the 14 Pro.
04:00It's not a huge difference versus last year, but it's nice.
04:04Also, what you're watching right now is ProRes raw footage from the iPhone 17 Pro, which I
04:11was particularly excited about because that means I can go into the new Final Cut Pro
04:1411.2, I think it is, and I can literally change ISO and white balance after I shoot, which
04:22is very useful.
04:23Also, the file sizes are huge.
04:26And there's even another Pro feature that they added that they couldn't brand for themselves
04:29because pros already use it and named it.
04:31And that's Genlock support, which basically lets devices talk to each other so that they
04:36can stay in sync over large multi-device shoots.
04:39Pretty sick.
04:39And also the selfie cameras are more pro than ever.
04:43More about that in the 17 base review.
04:46But yeah, a lot going on with cameras.
04:47So let's be real, 95% of people who get these phones are just going to point and shoot.
04:50And these are more capable and reliable than ever for that.
04:53If you want more in-depth stuff on shooting professionally with this camera, you can check out Tyler Stallman's
04:58review, which I'll link below, it's really in-depth, and he shot the whole thing also
05:02on the iPhone.
05:03My favorite thing about this new Pro iPhone, though, is actually the new design.
05:07It's not often that the newest iPhones actually change a lot and get thicker and heavier.
05:12But like I said, I think that's kind of one of the best things about them coming out with
05:15a separate phone that's designed just to be super thin so that if you want a thin phone,
05:20go get the Air.
05:21But if you don't care about that, if that's not one of your priorities, then here's the
05:24new Pro, which goes the other direction and isn't afraid of a few extra fractions of
05:28an inch.
05:29And I love that it's an all unibody metal jacket now.
05:33This is not a glass sandwich anymore.
05:36Literally the whole body of the phone is metal now with glass cutouts at the back for wireless
05:41charging and then at the top for those millimeter wave antennas.
05:44This makes it more durable.
05:46It makes more room inside for a bigger battery, which we'll get to in a second.
05:49And there's enough room for a vapor chamber for the first time ever in an iPhone.
05:54And then the new plateau at the top.
05:56I actually think it's great.
05:57This is where I've been putting my index finger on Android phones for years.
06:02It's like a natural resting spot to hold up the phone.
06:05Same thing with this one now.
06:06And Corning's Ceramic Shield 2, in case you haven't already heard, is also clearly awesome
06:10for preventing scratches to the front glass.
06:13A couple of nitpicks though.
06:14Uh, no black color.
06:17Pro phone?
06:19You sickos.
06:20This is like one of those weird things that it feels like Apple's doing just to spite me,
06:24where they're making a bunch of products that should have a black version, but don't.
06:28Like the new MacBook Airs come in silver and starlight and sky blue and dark blue, but no black.
06:34And then the AirPods Max refresh also comes in a bunch of colors and dark blue, but no black.
06:39We need a dark neutral, especially because the color that you pick actually shows up
06:46around the front bezel of the phone.
06:48So you see the color you pick all the time.
06:50It makes the orange and silver that much more annoying to me.
06:55I told you it was a nitpick.
06:56But then you've probably also already seen the chatter about scratch gate,
06:59which is just how easily it seems like the anodization layer on top of the aluminum
07:04seems to scratch off and then reveal the raw silver aluminum underneath it.
07:09And I kind of don't really know what to make of this yet.
07:11Like, I feel like this has come up before with a lot of darker anodized aluminum phones.
07:16And as a person who rocks a phone with no case,
07:18I haven't had any issues with the one I'm using.
07:20I've been tossing it around.
07:21But the Jerry everything test has revealed that the weakest part that you could get scratched
07:26or dinged is going to be around the tightest corner radii, like around the camera plateau.
07:31So we'll see how many phones this ends up affecting.
07:33But we got to talk about the insides of this phone because the redesign is one thing,
07:37but there's even more going on under the surface.
07:40The A19 Pro chip, shocker, is pretty great.
07:43It's benchmarked around 20% faster than the last generation.
07:46And when paired with iOS 26 and 12 gigs of RAM now, these phones feel really quick.
07:51And snappy, which is great.
07:53But the extra thickness has also made room for a vapor chamber for the first time.
07:58And it's actually made a real difference to the thermals and the behavior of this phone.
08:03Big shout out to HDX Studio, YouTuber, who was able to put thermal cameras on these phones
08:07under load and really visualize this.
08:10But especially compared to the air, these phones rarely got any more than slightly warm
08:16to the touch for me.
08:16And as a result, they were able to actually hold higher frame rates longer while gaming
08:21and keep the display brightness higher when recording videos for a long time.
08:25Check out the rest of his video too, by the way.
08:27It's freaking incredibly well done.
08:29But it also reminded me about why in the Android world, like gaming phones kind of have the same
08:34effect.
08:35The stuff that makes a gaming phone really good, like better speakers and better performance and
08:40better screen and big batteries, well, all that stuff is awesome for regular use too.
08:47And it's the same deal for the pro iPhone.
08:49The stuff that makes a really good pro iPhone, like the improved display and the much better cameras
08:55and the thicker, better build with improved cooling for shooting videos longer
08:59and better sustained performance.
09:01And yeah, it turns out the masses buying iPhone 17 Pro Max also really enjoy nicer screens,
09:07cameras and batteries too.
09:08Not a surprise.
09:09And we've all been saying for years, hey, just make a thicker phone and put more battery in it.
09:15I just really feel like this is another place where having an iPhone air focusing on getting super
09:19thin, let them feel free to go the total other direction with the other phones, because they're going
09:25to claim the iPhone air is all day battery life, then great. Every single other phone in the lineup
09:30gets even thicker with bigger batteries. So the 17 Pro has a 20% bigger battery than last year.
09:37And the pro max actually cracks the 5,000 milliamp hour mark for the first time ever,
09:41which is great in iPhone land and also 40 watt charging now. So that's half battery in 20 minutes
09:47to Apple. That's a big deal. Like we welcome a 20% year over year improvement.
09:51Now in Android land, obviously it's, it kind of looks like nothing. Like it's nowhere near the
09:56ultra phones with 6,000 milliamp hour silicon carbon batteries and a hundred watt charging and all
10:01that. But for a phone that ships like in the volume that the iPhone does, very happy to see that
10:08sort of improvement when last year's phone already had really good battery. The iPhone is also very
10:12efficient. So I am getting a nice five plus hours of screen on time every day on not even the
10:17bigger
10:17phone and it's lasting all day with 30 plus percent left. So I'm loving it. And then there's
10:21just all sorts of other little things too. Like with this screen, I think this is the first
10:26generation of iPhone that's had a toggle for PWM dimming. Now it's buried in the accessibility
10:31settings, but you can search and find it. And that is very welcome to many people.
10:36And there's also a slightly noticeable, but better than nothing, anti-reflective coating.
10:41But more importantly, the display gets slightly brighter now. And I noticed that it's up to 3,000
10:45nits peak and satellite connectivity has expanded to cover messaging and location sharing too now,
10:51which is useful. So at the end of the day, the paradox is that making the pro iPhones more pro
10:58is actually better for the masses. And this is the best one yet. It's the most freed one yet.
11:05And I think, you know, when they eventually, if they make some iPhone ultra at some point,
11:09I'll probably still want all of that over this, but for now, this is good stuff. Now,
11:13if you are thinking about getting an iPhone 17, but you are concerned about those scratches,
11:18then channel sponsor dbrand does have some options for you, like this grip case, which I have here
11:23in that black. And it also does a pretty good job of hiding that plateau, which if you've seen
11:28Zach's durability test, it is the most vulnerable spot for the anodization to chip off. Alternatively,
11:33if you're more of a clear case person, you can grab one of their ghost cases instead,
11:37which comes with a lifetime zero yellowing guarantee and also a full camera protection.
11:42Fun fact, these are also available at Best Buy in the US now too.
11:45Both cases check all the boxes you want in an iPhone case, like strong MagSafe
11:48and camera control buttons. But most importantly, they're both super protective.
11:53And then whichever way you go, if you want to round out your protection with a screen protector,
11:56you can also pick up one of dbrand's prism protectors. They're super easy to install.
12:00And if you bundle it with either a grip case or a ghost case, you can use code MKBHD at
12:04checkout to save
12:0542% on the prism. Pretty sweet deal. I'll leave a link down below for you to check them all
12:09out.
12:10So, thanks for watching. Catch you guys very soon, still in TechTember, in the next one. Peace.