**Update** So I’ve had my 12 Pro Max nearly a full calendar month now and here are my thoughts and experiences with it.
With the settings I am using 100% brightness at all times with Auto Brightness disabled and the accessibility shortcut set to 100% white point reduction for when I am in a dim environment, my eye strain has been greatly reduced.
Most days I notice nothing more than a slight itchy stingy eye if I’ve been using it for a significant amount of time and I’m talking hours of screen on time here, which has been manageable not perfect but not complete torture like before.
However occasionally for no apparent reason as I’m only doing light safari browsing the phone warms up which I believe is a known problem with the 12 series as there are lots of threads on this, however when this warming occurs it causes the screen to dim itself to protect the phone and when it has done that if I continue to use the phone that dimming will cause worse eye strain. This eye strain though isn’t as bad as I have had in the past and a dose of paracetamol or ibuprofen is enough to shift it. I need to be better at putting the phone down whilst it’s warm to allow it to return to full brightness, hopefully this overheating issue is something Apple can fix.
With regards to the screen in general use PWM aside it is a nice screen, and the extra brightness makes bright daytime usage so much easier and as someone who works outdoors this is a big upgrade for me. 100% white point reduction does reduce the brightness enough to make dark room usage doable but not totally comfortable as for me personally it’s still a little too bright, but for a quick scroll of Twitter before bed it’s perfectly fine. That being said 100% white point reduction does cause other issues as it completely crushes the dark colours, if you see the attached screenshot that black and dark grey patterned background just appears black with white point reduction on, which is obviously to be expected as you are messing with the colours. It does however make pages which have dark grey as their dark mode appear black which probably saves the battery as the pixels aren’t being lit, this forum is a good example.
As a phone screen aside it is a significant upgrade from my 11. The 2 reasons I upgraded were battery life and cellular performance and I must say this phone crushes the 11 in both regards.
Battery life my 11 would be at 20% by the end of a working day and in single digits just before bed, my 12 Pro Max I’ve not managed to drop below 30% and that’s with 5G set to Auto although this is pre iOS 14.5 recalibration on the 11 so the 11’s battery may get better.
Cellular performance on this phone is a night and day improvement over my 11, the 11 and any Intel modem iPhone I’ve owned X/XR/11 has performed terribly on my network of choice o2 the main issue being driving about and then stopping to use your phone it would indicate 4G(LTE) service but be either very slow or completely frozen until you toggle airplane mode and then service is restored and works in a lot of cases pretty fast. I do not have this issue with the 12 and nor does my wife who upgraded from an XR which had the same issue although she doesn’t use data as much as I do so she didn’t notice it as much.
Data speeds are significantly improved on 3G/4G and now 5G.
Calls on the 12 seem clearer too, even when connected to car Bluetooth devices.
Would I recommend an upgrade over an XR/11 well that depends:
If like me you were having cellular/battery issues then yes it’s a worthy upgrade and will change your experience of an iPhone.
If your cellular performance is good on your network of choice for instance the XR/11 work well on the EE network in the UK then I wouldn’t bother, in general use there is no noticeable performance upgrade from the earlier phones but I don’t really game or video edit so your mileage may vary. The camera is an upgrade but the 11 had a very good camera anyway so it’s probably not worth it for that either. If your battery health has dropped and your phone is in good condition then save the cash and get a battery replacement instead.
