Thoughts on iPhone 12 Pro Max vs iPhone 7 Plus
I upgraded my five year old iPhone 7 Plus for a new iPhone 12 Pro Max. I got a $1,500 model with maximum RAM.
It is genuinely surprising how little the iPhone has changed in five years. Here are my observations:
The Good:
- The most compelling feature is Dual-SIM capability. But it works poorly with Google-Fi.
- The iPhone 12 is styled like the iPhone 5. It is far more beautiful than the iPhone 7. And, it is less slippery in my hand.
The Bad:
- The screen isn’t as bright on the iPhone 12 Pro Max. My iPhone 7 screen is actually brighter.
- Face-ID doesn’t work with a mask. I am used to lifting my phone up and having it open, and now I have to enter my passcode all the time.
- Face-ID doesn’t open up to the Home Screen. With Touch-ID you press the button and it identifies you and opens up to the Home Screen. But its Face-ID you must go to through the extra motion of swiping up.
- To me, the iPhone 12 doesn’t feel faster, it doesn’t feel better, it doesn’t really feel different at all. I know it has far better specs, but they don’t seem to actually matter.
- I can’t believe that there is still no native VOIP support. Why can’t I put a VOIP extension from my office on my iPhone?
- The phone is much heavier feeling
- They still use a lightning port. Why on earth do they still have that? I know there is talk of eliminating all ports, but that would be terrible, too. I need to plug in to charge on airplanes. I don’t want to have to carry a charging puck in my briefcase. (What’s the big deal about wireless charging anyway?) They should just use USB-C like the whole rest of the world.
- I just hate the notch. It is ugly. They could have kept the notch but use it only for displaying battery and other status icons on a black background. Why do my videos need visual horns?
- Is 5G actually good for anything? I mean, really, does it actually allow something you do on a phone to really be faster?
- Why is it so expensive?