So, I swear I wasn’t originally going to do this—but after a lot of deliberation (and an opportunity that just happened to present itself), I upgraded from my iPhone 16 Pro Max to the iPhone 17 Pro Max in blue. In this video I break down the real reason I made the jump, because honestly my 16 Pro Max was still great: low battery cycles, everything worked perfectly… minus the scratches that seem basically impossible to avoid with Apple’s newer screen finish. For me, the killer feature is always the Pro camera system. Even with “real” cameras in my kit (Sony a6700, Leica Q3, and now the Fujifilm X1006), the iPhone is still the fastest, most practical camera I have in my pocket every day. The iPhone 17 Pro Max takes that further with 48MP across all lenses, which is huge for how I shoot unboxings and day-to-day content—no more dropping down to 12MP on the telephoto like before. I also talk about the brighter 3000-nit display and the new thermal cooling (great if you’re a mobile gamer), plus why I’m pairing it with ESR’s clear Hybrid Magnetic Case and their CryoBoost 3-in-1 folding charger for a simple, travel-friendly MagSafe setup.