So here we are on the final day of our iPhone 13 Pro Max diary. As we pointed out very early in this diary, while the 13 Pro Max does come with a brighter display and a newer Processor than the iPhone 12 Pro Max, the biggest selling point of this phone are its cameras, which have bigger Sensors and also come with special video shooting and editing features.
So the big question is: do all these improvements make the iPhone 13 Pro Max worth its starting price of Rs 1,29,900?
The answer depends on what you really need to do with the device. Let me say this upfront: if you are looking at a phone that simply does everything well, and if size is not a massive factor, then the iPhone 13 Pro Max is perhaps the best phone your money (a lot of money, true) can get. The iPhone 13 Pro Max just ticks all the boxes any super power user of a phone would want – it looks good (if a little on the large, wide side), its display is among the best out there for viewing any sort of content, it plays games well, is powerful enough to edit video on, handles every game you can throw at it, has amazing sound, supports a truckload of 5G bands…it has literally no weak point (I would have liked a 3.5 mm audio jack, but then that has been missing for a while).
Then there are the cameras. As we pointed out in Day 3 of this Diary, the cameras still output might not strike you as being very different from the 12 Pro Max, until you start Pixel peeping or use the new hidden-but-there macro mode, which lets you get really close to your subject (check day 3 of our diary). The difference in video quality is however, very striking and content creators will just love the ability to move focus and bokeh on the Cinematic Video mode (which we discussed in detail also on day 3 of this diary). The very fact that you can extensively edit video right from the gallery App is unbelievable at one level. And of course, that powerful A15 Bionic chip ensures that everything happens very smoothly.
In short, the iPhone 13 Pro Max is the sort of phone that someone looking for a “top of the line everything” would like, with a special accent on video. We can see a lot of “content creators” liking it for its sheer versatility in that regard – you can take great product snaps, close ups, shoot amazing video…edit and tweak it, and share and upload it literally within minutes, without having to go within a yard of a computer.
The biggest weakness – I would say the only weakness – of this phone is its price. At Rs 1,29,900, the iPhone 13 Pro Max comes with a price tag that can get you a decent notebook, an entry-level DSLR and a decent smartphone too. But interestingly, it manages to do the work of all three, not as well as each device would individually, but more than reasonably. It is not a foldable, but it wears many hats. And they all fit.
The big question is not whether you should buy the iPhone 13 Pro Max. That is a no-brainer. The big question is whether you can afford it. If you can and are comfortable with the size (if you are not, go with the smaller iPhone 13 Pro, although that smaller display can seem a little restricted after using this one), then this is a no-brainer. No other phone gives so much bang for so many bucks!