Unboxing iPhone 17 Pro Max – Worth the Upgrade?

Hey guys, Justin Page here. If for some reason you didn't know what today is, well, it's International iPhone Release Day. And here I have the iPhone 17 Pro Max in this controversial Cosmic Orange. In traditional fashion, we're going to unbox this, take a look at what's new, and answer that million-dollar question: is this even worth the upgrade? As usual, Apple keeps their box In presentation, nice and clean. Love the finish here. You can actually see it's embroidered here. I think that's the word, embroidered? Embossed? Embossed. It's just sleek, it's elegant. I mean, it's simple, but for a premium phone, you would think the packaging should be chef's kiss, right? Minimalistic, sleek, iPhone in orange. You could tell what the color's gonna be here. Long gone are the days of the plastic. Nice easy pull tabs. That's always satisfying. And here we go. Whoa. Cosmic Orange is definitely the name of this because this orange is orangey. Holy cow. It's very metallicy looking orange. In case you guys are curious about the Apple Watch band here, it definitely is a different orange color. Mind the dirt, ya boi be out there working. We'll take a look at the second. Of course, in the box, Apple's very slim, eco-friendly. We're long gone from the big back days, so now we are slim trimming on here with the packaging. Braided cable, which is the best upgrade that has ever happened with these cables, because if you remember the old ones, they always get frayed at the ends and just ugh. If we're doing some pro activities, this is pro boy activities, not that poor boy activity, you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Before, there used to be a SIM card tool remover here, but In the US, they are now all eSIM, so we don't have to worry about that. But if you're in the UK, you probably have one of these included that you can remove the SIM card. So there's that. Startup papers. You know, I'm curious who actually opens this up and reads it. No more Apple stickers. And, uh, that's the end of that. Now back to this. This color is really vibrant. I'm thinking about me using this every single day. You know, it actually feels really light. I don't know, in my opinion, It doesn't feel cheap. You know, this actually feels really good in the hands. Nice and curved edges. It feels soft, yet it feels premium and dense at the same time. Since they switched to this new aerospace-grade aluminum, aluminium, you know, which I find interesting because they rave so much about titanium after leaving stainless steel. But as Apple claims, it should be to reduce the heat, which we'll talk about in a little bit. The front and back are covered in Ceramic Shield 2. Apple says it's 3 times more scratch resistant than before. And now the back of the glass— black of the glass, black of the glass— now the back glass also has Ceramic Shield, which Apple claims is now 4 times better crack resistant than last year's model. And let me tell you about last year's model and cracks. On the front, you got a 6.9 Super Retina XDR OLED ProMotion, which goes from 1 to 120Hz refresh rate, something that's been standard. Apple also improved brightness outdoors, so it holds up better in direct sunlight, which jumps from 3,000 nits peak versus last year's 2,000. I live in Florida, that sun is constantly beating on my screen, always going dim so I can never see what's going on. But with this new Ceramic Shield coating, Apple says that it should help with the anti-reflective on the screening as well. So brightness increase plus anti-reflecting, hopefully we can see a little better. Now under the hood is the A19 Pro chip. This is paired with 12GB of RAM, up from 8GB on the iPhone 16 Pro Max. I don't know about you, but every time I would be in one app, then go to the next, but then go back to that one, it would always refresh, reload the app as if I'm opening it up for the first time again. So I'm curious if this is actually going to be the fix to that. Now, Apple did limit us with the Pro colors this year. Deep Blue, which I'm not going to lie, that thing looks sexy though. When I was holding that, I'm like, mm, you nice. The white or silver. The silver looked good. It looks sleek. It looked very modern. Apple, you know, the aluminum, that looked classic. Apple. But the orange, I'm not gonna lie, bro, I'm loud. I am loud as shit. Plus when people see the orange, they're gonna be like, oh bro, that's the new iPhone. Yeah. Storage for these Pro phones start at 256 gigs and goes all the way up to 2 terabytes, my G, and that is for $2,000. I'm like, what? That's crazy. Hold on here. But then I'm looking at my storage and I'm like, bruh, you hit 2 terabytes like it's nothing. and I'm like, damn, should I? And for the first time, there's a vapor chamber cooling system that basically just disperses the heat throughout the phone instead of it sitting directly where the chip is. Now on the 15 and 16, I've had these heating issues that was just ridiculous. Don't know if it was iOS related or if it was hardware related, but whenever I'm recording or if I'm just scrolling and doing a lot of video editing on the phone with CapCut or et cetera, the phone is always getting sluggish, slows down even more. Sometimes it just stops working. Let's talk about the camera. You have a triple 4-megapixel Fusion camera and a new telephoto. Now you've got coverage from macros all the way to 8x zoom, which is equivalent to 200mm if you're using the regular camera. This phone now supports ProRes RAW, so if you edit in Final Cut or DaVinci, this is specifically for you. But for the regular person, ain't nobody touching that. You're just going to point, shoot, call it a day. You're not doing much. Camera control. Apple did not talk much about this camera control, which they introduced to the iPhone 16 line. I can understand why. I think it's useless. The only thing good about Camera Control is just a quick button to push to open up your camera, which you can still swipe from the home screen or click the camera icon on the home screen. But who is using their phone like this to take pictures or swiping? I mean, even when they're doing demos on using the camera features, they're all using it on the screen, not this Camera Control button. I turned mine off because it was aggravating. I would bump into it accidentally whenever I'm recording. It's just ugh. Stupid, dumb, that's a bad apple. Eh-heh, eh-heh, Brian Tong would say. But on the flip side, Apple did its thing with this new front-facing camera, 18 megapixel, and they added in Center Stage from the MacBooks on here, which is super cool. And this new square sensor that automatically can crop without having to turn your phone sideways because it's already— whoa, oh, that was weird. Okay, cool, learning on the go here. What does this do? Auto zoom. Oh, auto zoom and auto rotate. Okay, so you can turn on the auto feature. Just learned that now.

Okay, huh, cool. Ready, Daz?

You're in the bathroom? Oh, sorry. Oh, I thought you were doing something.

Yeah, packing.

Oh, packing. At least you said you're in the bathroom like pooping.

No, pack.

Oh, okay, the other packing. You're unpacking. Okay, because unpacking would be unpacking.

Compacted.

Okay, I was just trying to see how the Center Stage works, which is working pretty cool because I'm sitting still and it's moving.

Oh, am I recorded?

Yes.

Oh no.

Lastly, I'll talk about the battery life, which in good old Apple fashion is the best battery life on the iPhone yet. Apple claims it's up to 39 hours of video playback, but what does that mean for the average person who just opens up their phone, tries to find the bottom of any social media platform, endlessly scrolling, just getting that dopamine rush? What does that mean for you? Well, you'll probably get about 18 hours on average throughout the day before you need to go and charge again, which is pretty good. Now if you're wondering why there's this two-tone on the back of the iPhone— two-tone on the back of the iPhone, two-tone on the back of the iPhone— that's because the glass is needed to charge the phone wirelessly. So it all comes down to the million-dollar question: should you upgrade your phone? Well, If you have the 14, you definitely should upgrade. Why? Because first of all, it has Lightning. We don't use Lightning no more. Get with the times. USB-C is a whole lot better. The stainless steel fingerprint disgusting all over, cracked back. Ignore that part because now you got the new ceramic shield that's 4 times crack resistant. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, you know. This sharpen the edges, mm. Nope, absolutely not. Highly upgrade from that. Now if you're on the 15 Pro Max, eh, at least you have USB-C. You don't have those sharp edges from the stainless steel. It's not as bad as a fingerprint magnet if that's what you care about. Maybe you use a case. I don't use a case. Eh, but you could be sacrificing battery life. The camera quality might not be the great. There's a little bit of variables there. Is it a significant one? Eh, I think it kind of is, to be honest with you. Now if you have the 16 Pro Max. Eh, it's really minimal upgrade. You know, actually, wait a minute, hold on. After holding the 15, this feels so much softer in the hands than this does. Wow, I actually forgot about that. And this feels heavier than the 15. Huh. Wasn't really a big fan of the colors last year. I felt like they're very mutish. I mean, this is the Desert Storm, Desert Sand, Desert Storm, Desert Sand. Wasn't a huge fan of this color, but I do like to go with the colors that Apple advertises. You know, I'm probably a sucker, Apple sheep type of person that just falls for the trap of buying the new shiny object, which could be you, where maybe you're having FOMO watching this video right now and saying, dang, I don't need the phone, but I really want the phone because I feel like I'm missing out. But I will say, at the very least, if you haven't already, go into your settings and make sure that you are updated to the latest iOS. Currently we're on iOS 26, so if you feel like, man, I really want a new phone, but I don't know if I should get it, at the very minimum, upgrade to that because you're going to feel like you have a brand new phone. Which has all these new features and kind of give you that, huh, this feels new. And yes, you, you with the iPhone 11, you can run iOS 26 as well. So maybe after updating your phone, you're like, dang, man, yo, Jay, that's just not doing it for me. I really want a new phone, but I don't want the iPhone Pro Max. Well, in my next video, we're going to be unboxing the iPhone Air. So stay tuned for that one because I'm excited myself to see how this is going to stack up to this. Justin Page here. Comment down below which phone you want, which phone color you're gonna go with, why did you go with that color, and let's just have some discussions down below. Appreciate you guys for staying with me on this one. Stay tuned to next one. Peace.