Okay - I'm going to come out and say I'm not a huge fan of my smartphone over my Canon. I've been shooting on the EOS system for years since the 1V but there are two things that have pushed me to use my iPhone more for work. 1) The camera in your pocket is more valuable than the 50 pounds of gear at home or in the car. 2) The iPhone 12 Pro - even without accessory lenses - performs really well for a wide variety of tasks - even in industrial/commercial or candid portrait photography on the go.I bought this as an alternative to a heavier professional "lightweight" tripod to save on gear space on a recent trip to Arizona that included a need to shoot commercial shots of a building. Overall it works great. While I tested the remote my watch controls my phone as well so I used both a few times - and both the Apple Watch and included remote worked great. (I just forgot the remote one morning in the car and remembered my watch could double as one so... Not a product problem - a user one. I tied it to a loop and clipped it to the included case so I wouldn't forget it in the future.The tripod is way taller than many budget tripods, includes a smartphone mount that will attach two ways (vertical or horizontal), and fits a 12 Pro Max laterally. Between mounting options and the head tilt, you can shoot in landscape or vertical mode without issue.It sets up quick, as easily as some of my way more expensive tripods, and is very light. I was able to pack it in my laptop bag (in the water bottle pouch) as a carry-on item without weighing me down. It's as stable as many ultra-light tripods that close into a small form factor meaning don't bump it. Even higher-end ones sacrifice stabilizer leg length to pull off a short collapse size and yes, there are some $150 plus models to $400+ models for head and tripod that are more stable and collapse to about as short but they cost more, weigh more, and defeated the purpose. While I'm not tossing it after this trip if I ran short on cargo space on the way back it's affordable enough to sacrifice it, or if I broke it in travel I can buy several for the price of a Monfroto.I have only one note - if you need to pan (say your taking a panoramic shot on an iPhone or shooting video) this won't work without building a dolly. The head doesn't swivel 360 degrees (or any) once the phone mount is leveled and fixed.I'm really happy with what I got for what I paid, don't get me wrong. For taking stills or selfies where having a remote is useful for you this is totally worth it. It's probably great for any video use where the camera can stay aimed at a fixed point, like shooting a kid's school concert whenever those happen again...There's a couple of affordable "video" tagged tripods - I'll try one of those next for panoramas - I want a travel tripod or two that are light and aren't too expensive so if they are lost or damaged in travel it's not a hit to the bottom line - especially when I'm just using a smartphone and not a medium format or DSLR camera that needs a professional tripod.Note - this would probably work great as a tripod for affordable LED lights or light boxes for on-the-go pop-up studio lighting, though it's too short for overhead or high-angle lighting unless you can get it up on something to add a few feet. I'm ordering a couple of more.