Other 16PM or 17PM?

[Donkey Man]

Dump the 17 - aluminum is crap and the phone is awfully ugly.

 

[d5aqoëp]

But but….. aerospace grade aluminium….. Come on man!

 

[Tripps9000]

Hey here is a good idea you should experiment with the iPhone 17 promax orange color take a few weeks cleaning it on and off and see if it will color change to pink🤣😆😂

 

[ruslan120]

Imagine if they had the titanium of the 16Pro and the glass of the 17Pro. That’d be a rugged monster.

That's exactly the phone I was imagining would be perfect for basically everyone. AppleExplained did a good video about how the move to Aluminum is less impactful than people think.

tldw it's not about the material, it's about heat dispersion

Video

Off topic
Personal ideal iPhone:
iPhone Air 2

1. Slightly larger screen, closer to Pro Max
2. Same Titanium build as currently
3. More powerful primary speaker (couldn't care less about stereo)
4. Maybe slightly thicker for vapor chamber, since moving the heat is 85% of the battle, not the actual material. That said, iPhones have been powerful enough for 5+ years. My only minor gripe is the heat at the top of the phone which is perfectly manageable as of iOS 26.1
   1. As of iOS 26.1 RC, battery is terrific. I was going to write - slightly thicker for slightly larger battery - but it's unnecessary as of 26.1.
5. reach: eliminate the port and add pads on the back for data transfer. use the space for battery or speaker. MagSafe 2 which has charging and data transfer built in. like on iPad Pro.

 

[throAU]

generally the difference between performance of gen X of phone and X+1 IN THE REAL WORLD is minimal.

use the one you like, if you upgrade after 1, 2 or 3 years you're still going to get minimal real world performance improvement most of the time. iPhones have been plenty fast since at least the 13, probably earlier.

 

[Andeddu]

Durability is used here as a blanket term, as if the word doesn't span a range of possible issues. Saying that the 17 Pro is more durable because the glass takes longer to break is in fact superficial, because it ignores different people's use cases. Personally, I've been using iPhones since the 3G and I've never had any phone bend, no cracked glass, just the usual scratches and possibly minor dents, depending on the model. So I would be more concerned for those than the glass breaking. It means nothing to me that the 17 Pro needs more drops for the glass to crack if it will be scratched and scuffed and dented more easily, because for me that is durability that I care about. I'm not taking the phone to a construction site or a war zone, something breaking my phone in half is not a concern, but having dented edges because of softer aluminum is very much a concern as I don't want to see that on such an expensive device.

I did stipulate that the 17 Pro is more durable and resistant to critical damage but more susceptible to superficial dents and scratches. I have never had any cosmetic damage on any of my phones so I am quite happy with the way things are with the 17 Pro. I wouldn’t mind if Apple chose titanium either, it’s not something that keeps me up at night.

 

[AppleTO]

I don't care what it's made out of. I would keep the 16 because it can stay on iOS 18. The 17 comes with iOS 26.

 

[Dog Bone Malone]

I bought my desert titanium 512GB 16pm 3 days before the 17pm release. I saved £200! I always like to stay 1 year behind. So far it's been a power house. It's doing everything and performing better then I ever expected, and more!

 

[DeftwillP]

I find the argument for "it's aluminum going forward" interesting. If nothing else, apple has shown us that in a few years they'll switch to another alloy and market that as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then a few generations later, they'll switch again to aluminum for "natural resources sustainability".

Rinse Lather Repeat

 

[nyc1]

Why did you upgrade from the 16 in the first place? Do you upgrade every year? If so, and you won't be keeping the 17 long, then it won't really matter that much for a year, but I'd say go back to the 16 Pro max if you prefer it and hold out for the next design or upcoming design. If you normally keep your phones for longer, you'll be stuck with the 17 if something you like much better comes along. With the folding phones and upcoming 20th anniversary phones on the horizon, it seems like they may not keep the 17 design long. And since the air isn't doing as well as they planned, they may bring the premium titanium back to the pro. The 17 pro has better camera and internals, but it's not a huge upgrade over the 16 pro, and the design is uglier. The 16 has the same screen size and I think the bezels are the same as well.
I had a 14 pro max in perfect condition and didn't really need to upgrade, but I did not like the extra weight from the stainless steel and was aware of the 17 rumors of switching to aluminum and changing the design, so I upgraded last year to the 16 pro max specifically for the titanium design and am so happy I did. I love the 16 pro max. The titanium frame is such an upgrade of the 14's shiny stainless steel--it's lighter, the edges are beveled and so much more comfortable to hold compared to the 14 PM, it doesn't show fingerprints like the shiny SS did, and the desert gold is so much nicer than the 14 gold. It just is so much more premium. I've been a gold phone person for a while now and the I dislike the 17 pro max colors and that they don't make it in gold. That's also partly why I didn't consider upgrading to the 15 PM aside from not being much of an upgrade over the 14 PM, they didn't offer gold that year. It's a given/inevitable that features will be upgraded every year even if minor, so I like to upgrade when there's a design I really like if I'll be keeping for a while. So at least exterior design-wise, I don't have the least bit of fomo with the new models and don't care to upgrade like for the 15 (from 14) or 17 (from 16) since I think they're uglier.

 

[valinda]

I would keep the 17 pro max, use a thin case.

 

[JCCL]

Here is my 17 Pro Max next to my 16 Pro Max (which now belongs to my wife). Frankly, if I didn't know any better, looking at it I would think the 16 Pro Max is the newer model. It looks so much better and its build quality is so superior. It looks like a premium high end device.

Day to day, the perform pretty much the same. One a 2 week vacation recently, I did find out the Telephoto and improved selfie camera very useful, but other than that the phone feel pretty much the same during daily usage.