Hands-On Tech 234 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Hands-On Tech. I've got the iPhone in hand and we will be talking about it today. Stay tuned. Hello and welcome to Hands On Tech. I am Mikah Sargent, and today we're doing what the name says. We're going hands on with. With the technology.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:28]:
Yes, that's right. I on Friday got very excited as I heard the doorbell ring and I ran to the door and then I had to tell someone that I did not want to add solar panels to my roof. But then later that same day, I heard the doorbell ring and I was very excited, so I ran to the door and it turned out to just be a package from Amazon. However, at the very end of no doorbell rang this time, but I happened to be in the living room and I heard that subtle hum of a UPS truck. And I look outside and sitting on my porch again without any doorbell ring or any, you know, needing to sign or anything like that is a couple of packages. And I said, oh, that's it, that's the phone. So I ran outside, waved at the people, grabbed my packages, brought them inside, and I have it in my hands, the iPhone 17 Pro Max. I've got in this beautiful deep blue color, which I think looks very good with this shot.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:43]:
I did not go with the orange for a couple of reasons. It orange is just not my favorite color in general. But also I knew that Leo would be picking up the orange one, so you'll be able to see that from him. But the first thing I want to talk about, of course, is kind of a comparison. So I'll switch over here. And you can see here on the left, I have the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and this, of course, is the 17 Pro Max. So Henry the boy Chihuahua is on the older phone. Mizzy the girl Chihuahua fox terrier is on the newer phone.

Mikah Sargent [00:02:24]:
As we kind of go through this, and honestly, let me pop this out of the case. This is the cactus leather case that I've talked about quite a bit on different shows. They are very similar in feel, in look. They are not so similar because as you can tell here on the 16 Pro Max, the older phone, you've got this glass back and you've got the titanium sides. Now, with the newer phone, we're rocking with what they call the unibody enclosure, aluminum all the way. It does have this glass portion for having all of the necessary components and also to make battery replacements easier. But overall, I would say that these phones feel pretty similar. The weight is very similar in hand as opposed to you know, comparing their actual weight differences.

Mikah Sargent [00:03:22]:
The weight is very similar in hand and you're not going to sense much of a difference if you're coming from the last model of phone. Now the screen is slightly, slightly improved with bezels that they say are not as thick. But honestly when I'm looking at it and when you look at it, let me see if I can get very close here, you probably can't notice that much of a difference there on the bezel. And I thought, okay, yeah, sure, we've got a bezel change. But ultimately again there's not this kind of moment where you're looking and you go, wow, that is so much different from the phone we had already. One thing you'll notice though, up at the top of the phone is this little spot that we have not seen on the top of the phone before. Because of the full glass back that we're used to. There's a lot of, of ability for the phones, antennas and different chips to be able to communicate through that.

Mikah Sargent [00:04:37]:
Because we don't have as much glass now they had to make that spot on the top for some of the signal to be able to pass through. Now let's talk about something that is unique to these new phones which is that along with that heat forged aluminum unibody, we also have this liquid cooled or vapor cooled interior and that is meant to help when it comes to the heat dissipation of these pro models. I will say I have at times using my older 16 pro max had some issues with heat and, and this new one in playing some of the same games to kind of test it out and check the performance quality, have been impressed with how cool it stays. You'll still get warmth but I'm used to when I set up a new phone having this incredible warmth that you kind of have to, ooh, let me put that down or let me maybe run a fan on it because I'm a little worried that it's going to be a problem. I have not had that experience when it comes to this new phone, which I think is really quite, quite exciting and makes me think that Apple's probably going to stick with this aluminum. It is really, it feels premium. Even though some would argue this is like a stepped back, a step back. Right.

Mikah Sargent [00:06:10]:
We had titanium before and the iPhone Air has titanium. Why are we going to aluminum? Well, it is this premium feel that's actually on the edges of the a little bit smoother and rounded as opposed to these kind of sharp edges that you get from the Titanium. So that has been really kind of striking and I thought that I was gonna have a bit of an issue with it, but I have not, I've not felt like it's a step back at all. Now the phone is quite the behemoth on the back due to that new plateau. Right. We've got this kind of raised portion here that houses the three cameras. You'll notice that the senso that houses all of the components for kind of depth and some of the other kind of figuring out how far away something is, not just for depth purposes but also for firing. Taking the photo has been moved over to the other side of the phone along with the flash.

Mikah Sargent [00:07:14]:
So it's a little bit different from this area that we're used to where everything kind of gets shuffled over to the side. Now I did buy a case for this and this is Apple's new tech woven case. Remember before I was rocking this third party otterbox, beautiful cactus leather, but I decided let's try what Apple's got this year. And so this is also another reason why I got the blue. I think the green and the blue look really good together. So here you can see fits very well as you would expect. But for whoops. For the purpose of this review, I went ahead and got the strap.

Mikah Sargent [00:08:03]:
Now let me tell you a little bit about it. So this is Apple's crossbody strap which is meant to be used to let you carry your phone. Let's see if I can get that exposure to change a little bit to let you kind of carry your phone at your side like a sling. And it was nearly impossible for me to install. So at the bottom of the case, when you get the tech woven case and probably many third party cases, they will have these little holes that you can use to slide in your, your little lanyard. Now with Apple's case, you simply take the strap and it's got these snaps on the end that easily slide off. So what you'll end up being left with, and I'll show you here, is just these two little dangly bits and those can stay there and you know, not, not be too much of a problem whenever you're not using the crossbody strap. But here's the thing, it says all you got to do is slide the, this, the little holder into those holes and then loop it around just like you would if you're putting on any lanyard, right? Well, try as I might because I wanted to do it just following Apple's instructions to see if it would work that way.

Mikah Sargent [00:09:23]:
Try as I might. I could not get this in, so I ended up having to use a SIM removal tool to push through and get it to hold. And that was finally able for me to kind of wrap it around and get it on there. Now I was already kind of. You know, we've seen people laugh about this crossbody strap idea, but I have kind of changed my opinion about it over time as I have gotten used to this and getting used to in, you know, a couple of days is really quite an overstatement. But the idea of using the crossbody strap, and there's one thing that I want to point out about it that made me go, that's so Apple. And that is that all along the adjustable strap here you actually have built into the fabric. And you almost wouldn't be able to tell because it's still very bendy along the strap, sort of.

Mikah Sargent [00:10:25]:
What am I trying to say? Like, vertically it's bendy horizontally, not as much. And that's because Apple put magnets all throughout this strap so that when you adjust, doesn't separate. It's separating right now because I have made an adjustment to it, but it very easily snaps together and it doesn't kind of separate between the two because of the magnets that they've built into it. So I've been very impressed with this crossbody strap, and what I think it's going to do for me is I'm a person who forgets to pull out the fantastic camera that I have in my pocket a lot. And if my phone is just there at my side and kind of swinging around, I'm already somebody who wears a crossbody bag. And so this just makes sense. So I wanted to talk about that. By the way, love that we are going to go through.

Mikah Sargent [00:11:22]:
After I'm kind of done talking about the phone, we're going to go through and do questions that are asked in the Discord. So if you are tuning in live to this and you are a member of the, then you are in the discord. And if you'd like to ask me specific questions about the new iPhone 17 Pro Max, then you will be able to do so there. Now, going on to the camera this year, We've got the 48 megapixel fusion main camera, the ultra wide and the telephoto. And they are honestly, the hard part is coming from a 16 Pro Max right to the 17 Pro Max. The hard part there is you're not seeing a huge difference between those two cameras. We do have some more optical zoom options this year at 0.5 for the ultra wide 1, 2, 4 and 8 and the 8 times optical zoom for the fusion camera system is pretty nice being able to get a little bit closer. And I think what it's especially good for is getting that nice bouquet that you might want.

Mikah Sargent [00:12:35]:
When you're taking a photo of someone kind of in the foreground with a lot of background behind them, you step back a ways. What do I end up doing? Taking photos of my dogs walking around outside. And it's delight for that. Now I wanted to mention that there's one reviewer who shoots a lot of videos names Tyler Stallman and Tyler use the 17 Pro Max to record video of someone with action mode on at that 8x zoom. And I'll include a link in the show notes. I'll make sure John gets that. It is incredible to see what the camera is able to do. Action mode is that technology that sort of crops in the video in order to add motion tracking to it and make it seem as smooth as possible.

Mikah Sargent [00:13:27]:
And at 8x zoom you're getting a lot of motion and yet it's able to pull off this really cool sweeping effect that you wouldn't expect from a phone. We also have that improved front camera. So whereas we're used to sensors that are not taking advantage of being square, we have a camera that is specifically making use of that square sensor and gives you the ability to take a front facing photo in landscape or portrait without actually having to move the phone to the side. And in practice that experience has been what you would expect. But it's nice because I don't have to change how I'm holding the phone. So I think that that was a feature that was great to add particularly when it comes to the camera control on the side. Being able to just hold the phone up and click that button is really delightful. On top of that we do see improvements with the A19 Pro chip that's built in.

Mikah Sargent [00:14:38]:
As I mentioned, most of the time what that means for me is better performance in kind of moving around just on the screen. I've noticed that the animations and the, the transitions that take place on these ph just seem a little bit smoother. Looks like the the exposure might be a little bit too much, but the transitions and everything seem a lot smoother than what I was getting when it came to using it on my my 16 Pro Max just the slightest bit. If you're moving from an older phone, yes, you're absolutely going to get quite the difference when it comes to comes to to this phone. Now let's talk about battery life with this. Apple quotes 39 hours of video playback, and that's quite a bit. If I add that together, that means more than a day of video playback on one charge. But I don't think that's the important part of this.

Mikah Sargent [00:15:47]:
I think the important part of this is another little thing that I bought. This is Apple's 40 watt dynamic charger. And so what this does is it can bump up to 60 watts of charging. So this is kind of cool because it has that tech or the sort of method of making it not take up as much space by having the prongs flip out. But it's just a USB C charger and it's normally will charge at 40 watts. But if your hardware and software support it, then it can charge at up to 60 watts of power. And what that means is you can get up to 50% charge in just 20 minutes. For the iPhone 17 Pro, that is magical because I can set it down and go do a couple of things and come back and if my phone was at 50% now, suddenly I'm back up to where I need to be.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:52]:
If I'm running even lower, at least I can make it through the rest of whatever it is given that 39 hours of video playback that's available. As far as the kind of overall look and feel that we talked a little bit about earlier, there are supposed to be improvements to the the screen, right. That we are having a better ceramic shield that is on this screen. And that I think is going to be important because let me see if I can show this on my 16 Pro Max. I ran into lots of issues with scratching and I want to see if I can't trying to get this to turn off. There we go. So as I let the light hit it, you can start to kind of see some of those scratches there that are running across this display. And that is just.

Mikah Sargent [00:17:55]:
That is not from me dropping it. That is just from it being in my pocket and pulling it out or setting it down and pulling it along. Those are the things that led to the scratches on this screen. And I was not impressed with. Look at that. That's a whoops. That's a deep scratch there. I.

Mikah Sargent [00:18:19]:
When I first got this phone, I think it was a couple of days after getting it and noticing those scratches and going, yeah, that's a problem. That's not something I'm too happy about. And I keep this thing in a case regularly. And yet I was still getting all of those, those scratches. So that was the problem that I had with the 16 Pro Max that I'm hoping will not be as much of an issue with 17 Pro Max given that it has this, this better ceramic shield that's built in. The screen also has better anti reflection. So it should in theory do a better job of not reflecting what you are seeing. So there's a look at the light on the 17 Pro Max and, and here if I can get this phone to stop.

Mikah Sargent [00:19:18]:
Yeah, you can kind of tell that the dimness is much better on the 17 Pro Max than you're getting with the 16 Pro Max. Now one of the things that I'm planning on doing is I have an infrared thermometer and I am going to kind of put the 16 Pro Max, the 17 Pro Max, you know, side by side, run them through some of the same things. And look at how that vapor chamber that has been added to the new phone actually does or does not do a better job of cooling the phone. So that's something that I'm looking forward to as well. When it comes to again, the camera lenses, we have seen those improvements with the 48 megapixel rear camera across the board and improvements to Apple's built in image processing kind of pipeline. These three lenses are, I think it's magical to me what any smartphone company, smartphone maker is able to put into their devices. And these three lenses I think are pretty miraculous. Again, you in my mind are never going to get to the level with this current kind of state of things and trying to be a phone and a camera at the same time.

Mikah Sargent [00:20:53]:
What you can get with certain DSLRs. But as we always say, it's the phone or it's the camera that you have with you, that's the one that matters. And I think you will be very happy with what this is able to do. Outside of that, I wanted to briefly mention the iOS 26 and how it looks and feels on this device. If You've upgraded to iOS 26 on your older phone, it's going to look pretty much the same. It is probably a little bit better at again those animations and transitions. I've experienced that and felt that was the case. But it's not so much of an impact that, you know, iOS 26 can only work at its best on this phone.

Mikah Sargent [00:21:39]:
That's been the case sometimes in the past where some of the features are kind of reserved for the latest model and we didn't really get a lot of that this time around. Once again, Apple Intelligence continues to be what it is. Not many improvements There that stand out and make it feel different. So I can't really talk about iOS26 as an extension of and benefits to this phone because you're getting so many of those features on older model phones as well. The other thing I'll say is that yes, we do see Wi Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 in this phone. When it comes to Wi Fi 7, I don't have a Wi Fi 7 router. But in terms of the speed that it has on, you know, 5G connectivity, because there's a 5G tower that's pretty close to me, that is blazing fast and close to what I can get with my router at home. And yeah, that connectivity I think is fine.

Mikah Sargent [00:22:50]:
That's something that I need to see with time. You know, I can't give that full review given Apple's own wireless chips, what that's going to look like. It's going to take at least, at least give me a week or a couple of weeks to kind of report back with where things stand on the 17 Pro. I'm happy there's nothing on this phone so far that has been a red flag. There have been phones in the past. I remember the, I don't remember which model it was, but there was a Pro model that had coil whine and you would hear it as it was processing making these strange little whirring sounds and it ended up being an issue with what they called coil wine. This does not have that. I've also not had any issues with the display.

Mikah Sargent [00:23:35]:
I've had that in the past with different models. And as far as I've seen, kind of looked around, I haven't seen any early complaints from people on manufacturing defects or issues that we sometimes see with with new phone rollouts. So ultimately that's going to be something that we pay attention to over time and get a better look at. But yeah, this is, this is the new 17 Pro Max now with the green tech woven case that has that seal on it to help prevent oil from getting into it and the crossbody strap from Apple as well and this beautiful deep blue color. I will have lots more to say about this as I am able to again get more time with it. So I will share more as I learn more and use more the device. Again, like I said, I want to run some thermos or some temperature tests on it, but let's take a look at the chat to see what is being asked of the chat or in the chat about the new phones. So let's see here.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:56]:
Really curious to know how the N1 performs the C1X and ah. Okay, here's a good question. What kind of material are the dangly bits made of? Do they seem strong? So this is Dustin talking about the parts of the case that are connected to the crossbody strap. This material seems to be like a nylon material. And I imagine if it's made like many of these straps within that braided nylon, there's probably a cord, like a plastic cord. And so I imagine that that's the same thing. I can't speak to though, what is actually inside to know for sure. But yeah, one would hope that it is a strong material, given that this is the connection point right.

Mikah Sargent [00:25:50]:
To between the phone and the crossbody strap. So it feels quite resilient. But I couldn't tell you what's inside. Wouldn't it be great if there was Kevlar? That'd be great. But again, I'm not sure. I could ask Apple. I don't know if they'd tell me, but I could certainly ask them because that is a very good question. Does it feel strong? It does, and that is good.

Mikah Sargent [00:26:18]:
But, you know, that is something that is worth asking because I would hate for it to fall apart and fall off. Let's see. Yeah. Watfin says, I've been very pleased with iOS 26 so far. Tiny experiential improvements and things like Apple mail. I agree. Ios26, it is a design change and a big change for some folks. I have not felt that it's so much of a change that people don't know what they're doing or where they can play around with things.

Mikah Sargent [00:27:08]:
And I mentioned recently that I think part of the reason why it's not been something that is getting people too upset outside of the design community is because of the customization options that are provided as part of the experience. And so the ability to go, ooh, I can make my phone look and feel new is something that gets people excited and then they're not going, why is everything so different? Dustin asks, do you think the tech woven will be a substantial improvement over the fine woven? I thought the fine woven was great in theory and I like the look, but it seems to have been a big miss on their part. That is correct. I do think, and this is not me just, you know, trying to be excited about the latest material. When use. When you would squeeze and feel the fine woven case, it had this feeling of it was almost like the loop side or, excuse me, it was almost like the hook side of a hook and loop fastener. And so it was almost as if each individual material loop was kind of up, sticking up, and so it was far more squishy. And that meant that you could do, you know, you could run your.

Mikah Sargent [00:28:34]:
You could almost practically just run your finger across it and make some of those loops kind of lay down. This feels far more tightly woven and it still is light, slightly, slightly squishy, but it is not that same. It doesn't have that same give that we had from the fine woven of before. It still feels like a textile sort of material. And when I run my finger across it, I can feel individual kind of bumps of the material of the cloth. Cloth or whatever it is. But it is not the same as kind of like open and perhaps like tall. The pile was taller.

Mikah Sargent [00:29:14]:
It felt like on the fine woven. This Tech woven does not have as tall of a pile. So we're kind of going from shag carpeting to, I don't know, like modern landlord special carpeting, but in a good way because it does feel a lot more. Are a lot less prone to kind of absorbing gunk and a lot less prone to having it be really affected by just something running across it. What's interesting is, despite the fact that they say it has a coating, I don't. I thought it was going to feel kind of like, kind of smooth. Right. There was going to be some sort of oil that, like a resin or something that made it smooth.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:04]:
It is not that way. You can still feel individual bits of the texture despite the fact that it has this, this coating on it. So again, this is one of those where you have to see how it plays out over time. Right. But so far so good. We'll be keeping an eye on that for sure. Interesting that Apple continues to offer fine woven in not the cases, but the wallets. And so even though Tech Woven has made its debut, you can still get fine woven.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:44]:
If you are looking for a new wallet for your phone, these are the magnetic wallets. And I thought, yeah, I think I can do a macro for you. Yeah, a bit less shag carpet, a more. A bit more like IKEA showroom, but let's see. No, you can ask any questions, Dr. McIntosh. Not just. Not just limited to the Pro Max, but definitely limited to iPhone.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:10]:
So if you have a question that's not about iPhone, that won't be for today. But any questions about iPhone, we can do that. Let's see about that. Yeah, let me take. Actually, that's what I'll do. I'll take a photo, a macro photo of the Tech woven case. And we will take that with the 17 Pro Max and we shall see what we're working with here. It almost looks like an LED screen, which is kind of cool.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:48]:
So I'm taking the photo and then what I'm going to do. John, do you want me to, like, send that to you or should I just post it in Discord and you can pull it up from Discord? How do you want that? Go ahead and put in Discord. Okay, that's what I'll do then. Let me get this good shot here. Ooh, I'm doing 2x8x is way too blurry, so we won't do that. Yeah, that's not going to focus enough. Okay, so let me post these few photos into the Discord and we can get a little bit of a look at the fine woven here and pop that over. Okay, let me actually, I see that my location is on for those.

Mikah Sargent [00:32:42]:
So let me turn that off and then we'll pop it over again. I love Airdrop. Okay, here are those photos. I can't show up with the overhead. Oh, I see what you're saying. You mean for the sake of taking the photos. That would have been far more engaging. You're right, Burke.

Mikah Sargent [00:33:19]:
Well, that's not ideal. Let me convert these to JPEGs since they're not showing up that way. Export selected images as. That's fine. We'll just do that and then grab those three, pop them in. Yeah. So it almost looks like an LED screen if you were zoomed in on an LED screen. Okay, I don't know what's going on with the second and third in Discord.

Mikah Sargent [00:34:05]:
Let me share these. I'm sorry. Yeah, but that. Do you have. Can you. Are you able to show all three or does the second and third one look blurry to you as well? Are you doing the HEICs or are you doing the PNGs? HEICs. Okay, good. Because the PNGs are not good.

Mikah Sargent [00:34:21]:
Sorry, Discord. But yeah, if you want to see them, you can download those three images. People in the chat. But yes, John has it up. So, yeah, if you've ever taken. I know John has one, a loop, and that's L, O, U, P, E. And put it up against. Or even if you've dripped a drop of water on your screen, which causes a magnification effect, you can see the individual LEDs of the screen.

Mikah Sargent [00:34:49]:
And that's what this reminds me of. Especially with that green that's coming through. I have the green version. And so, yeah, you can see the Individual fibers kind of woven together. I have a loop somewhere and I think what I'm going to try to do is take a photo of like with the loop and so we'll be able to get an even better view of this. Of course I'm sure the wire, not the wire cutter. I'm sure that our dear friends at iFixit are going to be doing even more more of a look at this. So we'll definitely check that out as well.

Mikah Sargent [00:35:22]:
Now there was a question John shared with me that asks is it worth upgrading from the 13 Pro to the 17 Pro? Well, let me do a quick let's assume that they're doing 13 pro standard, not the max and I'm going to go back and look at the iPhone 13 Pro tech specs. So for a reminder. Oh oh, this was the iPhone 13 or this was the iPhone Pro that came in green. It was in graphite, gold, silver, Sierra blue and alpine green. Loved it. Had a ceramic shield front and a textured matte glass back with the stainless steel design. So this was stainless steel, not aluminum. Came in four capacities from 128 all the way up to a terabyte.

Mikah Sargent [00:36:15]:
And it did have the Super Retina XDR display with promotion. So. So still that 6.1 inch screen, it has a resolution of. Let me see what the PPI is in comparison because I forget what it is with all of these models this year, it's hard to tell what or remember which is which. So let me get the tech specs for the 17 Pro. We are rocking a 460ppi. So that's actually the same as the 13 Pro. However, this is a 460ppi display that is 22,622 by 1206 versus 2532 by 1170.

Mikah Sargent [00:37:07]:
Given that the smaller of the Pros back Then was only 6.1 inches diagonal, this is a 6.3 inch. You've got the HDR display, same true tone and wide color, same the contrast ratio, same thousand nits of brightness. With 1200 max versus which can we talk about how this display can do 3,000 nits of peak brightness outdoors? That is wild. 3,000 nits of brightness. So if you have your phone outside a lot but you're definitely like this would be quite the update for you just even seeing that same thing in terms of like the fingerprint resistance. Although of course the newer phone has this new anti reflective coating. I'm looking at some of the other improvements as well. It's hard to know without knowing what you do with your phone.

Mikah Sargent [00:38:10]:
But to go from a 12 megapixel to a 48 megapixel lineup is quite the improvement. And so if you are someone who takes a lot of photos, yes, I think it's worth upgrading from 13 Pro to the new 17 Pro. Paired with the fact, and this is something that I always say, yes, you can get a new battery for your older phone, but getting a new phone and a new battery means now you've got this device for so much longer. You know, you're kind of hitting reset on that, right? Anytime you get the new phone, you're getting a new battery. And so you're kind of hitting reset on when it comes time for you to need to replace the phone. So, yeah, I think going that far back, iPhone 13 Pro was a great model, especially if you got the green one. And yeah, you won't be able to get the green, which stinks. But yeah, from that many iterations ago, as Wodfan suggests, this is going to be.

Mikah Sargent [00:39:15]:
It's going to be a night and day improvement for you. Another question someone asked me, if I'm going to be keeping the iPhone 16 Pro, there were times in the past and I'm sure that's why this question is being asked. What I would do is at the time I was using the older iPhone that I had that I then replaced with a new one. I was using the older one as my camera. And so I was using a tool. This wasn't continuity camera, it was a third party tool. That this very moment is escaping me and I feel bad because I haven't used it in a while, but I don't remember what it's called, but it let me use my camera or my phone as my camera. So what I would do is the old phone would become my camera.

Mikah Sargent [00:40:00]:
The new phone would be the one that I would use. However, now that I have a camera camera, it's a Sony camera. I don't need to do that. So yes, I will or no, I will not be keeping it. Yes, I will be sending it in. I hope I was quoted for the $700 which will then, you know, cut off the price of the new phone. I am worried that the scratches are going to be a problem. But it's interesting because I do have Apple care and so technically I could have had a screen replacement on it that it'll just be interesting.

Mikah Sargent [00:40:36]:
Hopefully it won't be an issue. I'll be sending it in soon. I need to do a few more tests to compare the two models as I said I would for particularly the temperature changes. But yes, let's see any other questions that people have? Yeah, I agree. There's no, there's really no pile on the tech woven versus the fine woven. It was funny. I came outside of my office and was showing my significant other, my, you know, the new phone. And as I said, he asked me, you know, oh, you got it in blue, you didn't do the orange.

Mikah Sargent [00:41:16]:
Da da da da. I was like, well, I am going to have a case. And he said, oh, it's too bad that it doesn't come in green. And I said, oh, well the case does. I took it out and as I was showing the box it said he saw the woven part and he said, oh. And I what fine woven? He hates the fine woven wallet that he bought. And I was like, oh, don't worry, it's tech woven this year. It's different and it has been different.

Mikah Sargent [00:41:39]:
I've been impressed with it so far, so much improved over the fine woven case of yesteryear. And I think I will continue to rock this, particularly because it has the pass through for camera control, including the capacitive nature of that. It has the side button. All of these buttons, they're the machined buttons. And Apple says that the buttons are improved this year. How many times is Mikah going to say button and I would say, I don't know about improved when Apple says improved and they don't sort of say what that means. But when I compare it to last year's case, these buttons don't stick out as far as last year's did. And I don't know that that's an improvement for me.

Mikah Sargent [00:42:35]:
It might not be. I like. So the cactus leather case that I have, its buttons are, they stick out quite a ways. Let's see if I can get this to focus up so close. I don't know if that's going to happen. Yeah, they stick. Oops. We could do this.

Mikah Sargent [00:42:57]:
We can do this. We can do this. They stick out quite a bit more than the new case does and I like that because I can find the button without looking at the phone and the case. But it's not quite the same in this. So we'll see. Can you compare the camera bumps without cases between the old and new phones? Let's see. I'm trying to think about how to do this. I would say that the height is almost exactly the same.

Mikah Sargent [00:43:37]:
Here, let me put them like this. And then you can kind of see there's, there's really not much of a difference between them in terms of the bump. It of course, because the bump runs across the entirety of the new phone, then it feels like this is maybe taller, but I don't. It's in terms of the parts that stick up, that's just about the same on both of them. So yeah, the lenses are a little bit bigger, of course, on the newer phone with each of them being that 48 megapixel. But by bigger I mean bigger around. But as far as height goes, feels about the same between the two. All right, so that is a look at the new iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Mikah Sargent [00:44:41]:
And as I mentioned, I've got a few other tests I want to run, a few other things that we'll need to look at over time. This is one of the downsides of being, you know, we get the phones as soon as we can and we test them as soon as we can. It is different than folks who are able to get the phones ahead of time and do kind of embargoed reviews. So thank you for, for, you know, hanging out, asking questions, being part of this. I really appreciate that as well. And if you could, I would love it if you shared this video once it's up, out and about. That's very helpful and will, you know, perhaps have an impact on the future and our ability to review these phones along with the, the rest of the kind of tech cohort. But yeah, over time, if you've got other questions that you want to ask, be sure to reach out with those.

Mikah Sargent [00:45:44]:
As I said, I've still got more to kind of test and try out. And so I'll be back with even more thoughts on the 17 Pro Max in the future. We as a group, I think have all gone with the pro models. So the air is not amongst us. But I am looking forward to going and checking out an AIR at an Apple store just because I want to feel, feel it and see it and check it out as well. So with that, I want to remind you all, if you are not members of Club Twit, you should join the Club twit.tv/clubtwit. When you join the club, $10 a month, $120 a year, you will get some awesome benefits. Every single one of our shows ad free.

Mikah Sargent [00:46:29]:
Just the special feeds that are just for you even to say your name in them. And you also gain access to our awesome, our awesome feeds as a member of Club TWiT. So you will be able to check out our kind of behind the scenes footage before the show, after the show. We also have a feed that is just for our news events. So whenever we cover different tech events like Meta's recent event, the Apple All Dropping show, and Google's Made by Google event, all of those with live commentary are available to you as well as our special Club TWiT shows like my Crafting Corner as well as we've got, let's see, we've got a book club with Stacey Higginbotham and so much more. If all of that sounds good to you, please join the club. And what's great about it is we kick you off with a two week free trial so there's no reason not to give it a go. Check it out, see if it's for you.

Mikah Sargent [00:47:35]:
I think you're gonna love it and I am going to love having you as a member of the club. Very exciting and I look forward to that. Thank you to those of you who've said that you will be sharing this with others. I really appreciate it. Again, that makes a huge difference. And thank you again as well for being here, for being, you know, somebody who tunes in or downloads or subscribes or whatever to Hands On Tech. I will be back next week with another episode of Hands On Tech. But until then, it is time for me to say goodbye to all of you while I go out and take some photos and videos and try to make this thing get hot.

Mikah Sargent [00:48:18]:
We got to try to put that vapor cooling to, you know, know, give it the old college try of warming it up as much as we can. So we'll see how that goes. Thanks so much. I'll catch you again soon.

TWiT.tv [00:48:31]:
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