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iPhone Air From Air to 17PM to Air to 17 Pro..
- Thread starter LordArchie
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Why do Air customers take any criticism of the phone as a personal affront? I’ve only seen this kind of behavior with mini customers. I really don’t get it.
Why tell someone their firsthand personal experience with a device was wrong or misleading just because they dared to criticize your precious overpriced phone?
You paid 1 grand for a phone that is limited feature wise compared to one that is $100 more all because it’s 2mm thinner overall than an iPhone 16e.
So to try and justify or rationalize the purchase it feels like Air customers feel the need to belittle owners of any other phone. They act like people just are “using it wrong” when in reality it’s just inferior.
So if you get a phone that's been opened and returned is that ok with you or do you return that too? Because that's the other side of it and with phones it goes to the 'refurbished pile' probably but you should see the literally tons of rubbish that's returned and goes to scrap.
As soon as something is out of its box and a cable is missing or even a piece of paper, more than often it is just junked. Plus often they sit around for months before they even get looked at, sometimes to the point where they are out of date or have been ruined by storage.
It's enormous. The majority of good returned are never used again at all.
Return for the vast majority of things means straight to landfill
It's even worse for return of garments.
You may think it's a privilege but it's something no one should do casually. Just look into the amount it produces and you have to be total sociopath not to be concerned.
You’re projecting your own weird tribalism onto me here. I’m a grown-ass adult on the wrong side of 40 who sure as heck doesn’t tie up his identity with his phone.
However, I am a lifelong photographer and bothered that people understand so little about the cameras in their phones. Even reviewers make wrong claims and miss critical details all the time. Frustrating.
The Pro main camera has a well known deficiency in the close-up range. Not only does it not focus very closely, its image quality falls off a cliff near its minimum focus distance. There have been innumerable complaints about close-range corner blurriness since the current Pro lens arrived with the 14 Pro.
As for using the ultrawide for macro – a crude hack at best – that’s far from the quality of the closer-focusing 17’s main camera or the Air’s identical sole camera (which have much bigger sensors and faster lenses).
So in that focusing distance range below the Pro’s main camera min distance but above the Air’s min distance, the Air (and regular 17) have much better image quality than the Pro. This happens to be typical document-scanning distance.
Because the quality delta is so large, the Air continues to beat the Pro’s ultrawide macro even when you have to heavily crop the Air image (to fill the frame with a small document). I hope to test how far this holds true in practice soon.
At some extremely high reproduction ratio, eventually even the compromised ultrawide macro beats the Air by dint of pixels per document, but it takes a surprisingly long time before it beats a heavy crop from the Air’s much larger sensor and faster lens. Especially in dimmer light than direct sunlight. Plus, the Air’s working distance is greater, and that means you’re less likely to block light or cast a hard shadow on the document you’re trying to photograph.
It’s misleading to suggest the Pro does better for document scanning for all the reasons I’ve described. If something isn’t clear I can try to explain it differently.
The Pro does have other camera advantages, obviously.
Maybe someone cares about getting good results for document scanning? If they do, they shouldn’t get a Pro. However, they might have to learn to use the Air camera properly, if it somehow doesn’t occur to them that the photo would need to be in focus. The Air focuses down to about 5 inches. So don’t take the picture at 3 inches. Duh. Crop if you need to.
Grow up.
I heard few times that Air camera is disappointing. Is Air camera worse than regular 17? Anyone has experienced?
This is common for many people in this forum. They’re apple enthusiasts, and they need validation for their purchase. Nothing wrong with that. Just understood that people can’t be objective all the time.
Identical hardware.
It’s objective to bring up strengths and weaknesses. The 17 Pro main camera has obvious, heavily marketed advantages (readout rate, related video capabilities, tele camera, ultrawide camera versus the Air but not the 17).
Less obvious but equally real – and more important for document scanning – is the Pro’s close-focusing weakness.
So is this the final answer or will be another iPhone added to the refurbished pile?
Battery life and weight are published specs. Any Apple Store, Best Buy or carrier has the models available to play with before you buy. You can see the colors too and decide before you buy.
There are innumerable sites and videos reviewing new iPhones.
The way you can avoid whatever ache you have transferring data is to do research before you make a purchase. Zero sympathy.
Battery life and weight are published specs. Any Apple Store, Best Buy or carrier has the models available to play with before you buy. You can see the colors too and decide before you buy.
There are innumerable sites and videos reviewing new iPhones.
The way you can avoid whatever ache you have transferring data is to do research before you make a purchase. Zero sympathy.
The Air can focus to within 5 cms so should be adequate for a drivers license. The Pro Max can focus down to 2 cms using the wide angle lens and does not crop to get the macro effect. The main camera on the Pro Max can focus down to 10 cms which is close enough for most letter or A4 docs. If you get very close on the Pro Max (closer than 10 cms) it should switch automatically to the wide angle lens.
How old are you? Lol.
How dare anyone say the Air can do something better than your precious 17 Pro, and if they do you jump on it and then belittle them (the same as what your accusing Air owners of doing) saying it’s inferior, feature limited blah blah
Sorry, but facts are facts and the Air can focus closer than the 17 Pro with the main lens.
What the 17 Pro and previous Pro phones do to compensate for this disadvantage is jump to the ultra wide lens.
Yes the 17 Pro has the better more versatile camera system overall. No one is saying otherwise.
You can just hold the phone a bit further away and use the 2x zoom.
Can confirm this works 100%. Problem solved case closed.
You can
- the perfect phone does not exist
- figure out your set of compromises you're willing to deal with
- buy that phone
- run with it
this is how most people buy phones. They don't change their mind 4 times in the space of a 14 day return window. They spend more than 35 seconds considering their options, pick one and buy it.
Agonising like this over a phone when anything on sale today is 100x better than what we were using a decade ago is.... insane.
I'm not an apple shareholder but this sort of mass return abuse (which is well and truly beyond the scope of the SPIRIT of the policy) just annoys me because that cost isn't passed onto you directly, but at scale it means we all pay more for our devices to cover this stuff.
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No, it doesn't.
They all do not have infinite battery capacity, they all have cameras that are not as good as reality, they all have limited storage and they all weigh something. They all take time to boot, they all take time to unlock and they all take time to both download, and open apps. They pretty much all need security updates. They all break. They all go end of support. They all cost money.
I don't care what you buy - all phones have compromises - you weigh your options and you make your choice.
I gonna do 10 returns out of spite.
You don't say?
My premise is there's no perfect phone because they all suck, and you're saying "no its already been done" like that makes a device perfect?
I do not want anything added like a bigger battery.You don't say?
My premise is there's no perfect phone because they all suck, and you're saying "no its already been done" like that makes a device perfect?
To me, it has nothing to do with Apple as I don’t really care for them as an organisation.
I am anti-returns at the beginning of a new phone cycle because it’s so difficult to get ahold of specific models. It took me almost a month to get my hands on a 17 Pro with the 17 PM still out of stock in my area.
If you return a unit, it is effectively out of circulation as it’ll either be earmarked as an AppleCare+ replacement or sold as an Apple Certified refurb 6 months later.
Your indecision is preventing genuine customers from getting the phones they want. That’s why I always do my research first. An informed decision can easily be made with 4-5 hours of research on YouTube along with asking questions on this forum.
I initially wanted the Air however quickly realised, through research, that it wouldn’t be a suitable device for me. I thereafter picked up a 17 Pro and have been delighted with it.
There will be the odd time you might want to return a phone due to certain intangibles however 99% of your questions are answered online allowing you to make an informed decision.
Don’t be lazy. Do research.
I agree with you for some types of items. Apple does not throw away phones because they were opened. I think the biggest impact from these returns is probably the logistics of moving them to other places for inspection and potential refurbishment. Just a guess.
The mass shift to online purchases necessitates return policies. If I cannot try something on or see it in person, I will only purchase if there’s a good return policy. Many companies are trying to cutout the cost of having products in store, along with many consumers preferring the convenience of fast shipping to their doors.
It’s a total two way street. The consumer is not the only one contributing to return rates.