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A lot of the marketing that Apple's put out for the iPhone 18 Pro and the Pro Max has been around its camera with the variable aperture. The little blades opening and closing in slow motion. It was a big part of the keynote. People were like cheering when they announced it, and it's all over the website. Now, I've been using it for a few days, and I think that camera is very cool, but I'd argue that it's one of the less interesting things about this new phone. Uh I think the coolest thing is actually a feature that they barely mentioned during the keynote. It is the hidden camera that's underneath the front screen. So, I'm not talking about the under-display camera that we see on the iPhone Duo. That's a separate
conversation for a future review. I'm talking about the Face ID cameras that are in the top left corner here that never reveal themselves. They're always underneath the display and they're functional even when the screen is on, and it's it's crazy. It's so cool. I don't think most people picking up a phone like this would ever even know that it's there. Like, you'd have to watch a nerd video like this or put it under the microscope to be able to see it. So, let me show you what's going on here. So, this is the typical array of a white like just a white background. We're looking at that. But, if you move the scope over the spot right here. So, look at the pixel array there. It's
a little bit different, right? You see this like black zigzag pattern that seems to cut in between the array. And these black zigzags are actually gaps in the pixels. There are no pixels there. It's just glass, and it allows the Face ID camera underneath to still do its job. So, in the Dynamic Island you still have the illuminator and the dot projector that are still blasting your face with infrared light and infrared dots, but the camera that detects those infrared dots has been removed from the Dynamic Island, and it's been placed in this top left corner, and that is why you have a much smaller Dynamic Island. But, let me be clear as to how difficult
this is. So, the concept of an under-display camera isn't new, right? We've seen a bunch of those, but this is the first time we've seen one that is as hidden as this one is. But, more importantly, anytime we've seen a company try and under display optic of some sort, we've come to expect really bad image quality from that camera. Because it's just the nature of shooting through a grid of pixels, right? But, this thing, I expected to have some kind of reduced capacity or reduced like effective range or accuracy or nothing. All the testing that I did from it, it's just as good as the one on the 17 Pro. And it's just it's incredible. The one place I did run into issues was with screen protectors. I tried using a matte
one, and you could tell right away it wasn't going to work. Just get one that's engineered to be optically clear, and you should be good to go. Now, what you get out of all of this is a smaller Dynamic Island, and it's about 25% smaller than the previous generation. So, this one here is the 17 Pro Max. It's not a massive difference. Uh I know they pitch it as if it's like a life-changing experience. It's a little smaller, which is kind of cool. Um these are the colors. This is like the new one. This is the dark blue from last year, and that's why the bezel just looks much thicker, if that's what you're wondering. Uh but, I don't know if this is all that useful. Because the extra live activities that you get, so uh
the old one could only house two live activities. The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max can house three live activities. Now, as someone who almost never has more than one live activity at once, it seems superfluous. Other people may really find this useful, but I do think this is like a step one towards something that's a little bit bigger. Like, I feel like they're going to eventually remove all of the components in the Dynamic Island and have them all on the display at some point. Hopefully in the relatively near future, cuz that would look hella clean. And it's just so cool. Like, the technology and the engineering that went behind this is just it's so cool. So, in addition to
hiding it, you now have to those pixels at a higher brightness. Like in order to make it as, you know, disguised as we're seeing it here, the pixels that are over that area, because if you remember those zigzag patterns remove half the pixels, you now have to drive those pixels harder, brighter to compensate for it so that you so it doesn't look like it's like a dimmer section there. And it is very hard to spot. The only time that I feel like you can see it is if the image that's over there is like a darker color. Now, the one concern I do have is the longevity or like the lifespan of the pixels that are right over that area, right? If they're driving them twice as hard and they're going twice as
bright, I would imagine that after a few years, there's got to be some kind of degradation. It is a very small section and Apple does do like per pixel degradation control. Like they do stuff to mitigate any kind of damage to the pixels, but it just seems miraculous if there's no impact on that after a few years. In any case, I think that's super cool. Arguably the coolest thing about this year's phones. It's just they glazed over it and I'm like, how could they not talk more about this? This is amazing.
No one else is even doing this. Okay, the other thing that's changed or another thing that's changed is the thermal performance on here. So, this year's phones, the 18 Pro, 18 Pro Max have fantastic thermal performance. When they announced it in the keynote, the numbers were so big and I'm like, part of me was thinking, does anyone need this? Like does anyone really need sustained performance on their phones that to go to this degree? Because the most demanding games already hold max frame rate for a very long time on these phones. And normal 3D titles haven't had issues with sustained performance like a few generations of iPhone Pros. But I ran a 3D Mark stress test. It's
very obvious that the 18 Pro and the 18 Pro Max hold their peak performance better than the previous generation. And for reference, last year when I measured the 17 Pro and the 17 Pro Max, I was already very impressed with how good the thermals performed on those. And this is just even better. It's wild. Now, they've put in a lot of effort on the thermal capabilities. It's got improved vapor chambers, uh graphite layer, a copper layer on the display plate specifically to cool off the screen. And the new SOC, the A20 Pro, they place the die next to the memory instead of stacking it. So, it just gives a better thermal performance. The whole thing is just very cleverly designed and just
smartly engineered to make it so much more thermally capable than phones really need to be. They showed me a convincing demo to highlight the thermal performance of the 18 Pro. But, I think for most people, it's not about gaming frame rates and stuff. And even like photo and video work, as demanding as that stuff is, that's pretty bursty. The one thing I think would affect many people is just sustained screen brightness on super sunny and hot days, right? We've all had that time when like the screen has to lower the brightness because it's too hot and then you can't you still can't read the screen very well. This would definitely help with that. Now, in terms of battery life,
they're claiming that the 18 Pro can hit 36 hours of video playback and the 18 Pro Max can hit 45. In my testing, I turned off Apple Intelligence to prevent any kind of background indexing. And the battery life is better on both devices, but it wasn't as noticeable when you're pushing the system in games. But, the new chip seems like it's very energy efficient for regular use. Uh one quick note about charging. So, both of these devices are able to in theory hit 50% charge with just 15 minutes of charging. Now, in order to hit that, you need not just a high wattage charger. So, you need 60 W, but you also need that charger to be one of those newer ones with advanced voltage switching. So,
something that can switch in between the voltages gradually and in very small increments. So, a typical like a laptop charger that can go high wattage won't be able to do it. Uh you need one of the newer chargers that do like power delivery 3.1, 3.2. So, it can be done, but you need some advanced charging hardware to do it. Now, the beefy thermal solutions and the beefy batteries do come at because both of these, despite being the same dimensions as the previous generation, are heavier. Now, I see a lot of people commenting about how these are heavier. They are. Like, when I pick them up in hand, I think I can feel that this one is heavier, the new one. But, it's so slight. And like, to me, it's a very small trade-off to have like the
thermals and more importantly the battery life that the new one does have. I don't know. People have been complaining about the weight. I don't think it's a big deal. Now, the other thing that's attributing to the weight is also the camera system. So, that variable aperture has to add some kind of weight to it. It's small, but again, we're in the realm of grams here, right? But, when you have moving parts like blades and actuators and extra glass, it has to be by definition heavier than a fixed aperture, right?
Uh now, this new variable aperture system has four settings. And on paper, this should be a big deal, right? You have an aperture that you can open up as wide as possible. If you're like working in low light, you can let in as much light data as possible. And if you're taking a picture of like a landscape or a group of people and you want everything to be as sharp as possible, you would shrink down that aperture tight. Now, the default aperture is 1.8, which is the second widest setting. And the 17 Pro from last year had a default aperture, fixed default aperture of 1.78. They were very similar. And these two phones have the same size sensor and the same 24 mm lens. So, the average
photo you're shooting isn't going to be all that different between the two. Now, it does adjust the aperture automatically. When you're in low light, it often goes down to the widest setting, 1.48. And when I compare shots in low light, yes, the new one is better. Uh and it's also a little quicker of a shot because it doesn't have to stay open for as long. It can do it a little bit quicker because it's gathering that light data quicker. But, in good lighting, the automatic mode would often default to that F 1.8, which is again, not all that different from the aperture setting of the iPhone 17 Pro Max. And I found that with good lighting like outdoors, sunny day, it was really hard to tell the difference
between the two photos. Now, obviously in certain lighting conditions and if there's motion and if you're trying to capture certain things, the automatic settings might shrink down the aperture, but I didn't find the images all that different when I was looking at them in post. Even the few that I had of like group photos. Uh the thing that makes me most wary of this tech though is that again, multiple companies have tried this before in the past. Samsung's done it, Xiaomi's done it, and both of them have abandoned this kind of thing. I don't think it's bad that Apple went for it. I'm just surprised that I'm not seeing more utility out of the tighter apertures. Like I just thought there
would be more to it. Maybe it doesn't affect the type of photography and video work that I do and maybe others will have a different experience. Okay, in terms of the shape, this is the same shape as last year. Cases from the 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, they fit right on here. I think it's just because of the existence of the iPhone Duo. The teams that would normally handle like the industrial design and the engineering of the enclosures and all the tooling around that, they were all locked in for iPhone Duo and these just have the same shape as the previous. Next year will be the 20th anniversary of iPhone, so I imagine the slab flagship phone of next year will probably be a pretty significant redesign for the
20th anniversary. One should hope. Okay, uh in terms of pricing, the base models at base storage are $100 more than the previous generation, which is tolerable all things considered in the market, but as you climb the storage tiers, it goes up pretty quickly and at 2 terabytes, it's very painful because it's like $500 more this year than last year because again, component pricing. Okay, there you have it. If you're interested in buying this stuff, the real simple thing is iPhone 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max are going to give you the better value compared to this. They didn't get hit with the nasty pricing and I think
that stuff is going to come down just organically and uh these things they don't seem like massive improvements versus the 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max but also if you're super spending and you're even looking at this in the first place I would totally wait for the iPhone duo review that will be coming in October. Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video.
