For as long as the iPhone Pro Max range has been available, it has been my go-to iPhone. I like big screens (and I cannot lie), and as many camera options as possible, which is what you go to the Pro Max range for. While in recent years I have grumbled about the iPhone only getting incremental upgrades that weren’t particularly noticeable year on year, I really like this year’s incremental upgrade.
This isn’t a revolutionary new iPhone that will change the way we understand phones, or whatever. But it has meaningful upgrades that have already made a noticeable difference to how I can use the phone, even coming from a 16 Pro Max. For users coming from an iPhone 12 or 13, this upgrade will be revolutionary.
Table of contents
- First impressions
- Specifications and price
- Benchmarking
- Camera
- Gaming
- Battery
- Who is the iPhone 17 Pro Max for?
First impressions
Because I came to the iPhone 17 Pro Max straight after testing the iPhone Air, my first impression was that it is massive. An absolute unit. A chonky boy. However, not unpleasantly so. It’s a substantial phone, to be sure, and bigger and heavier than last year’s 16 Pro Max (by a whopping 0.5mm thicker, 0.4mm wider and taller, and 4g heavier, so not noticeable), but it feels substantial rather than unwieldy.
The new aesthetic stands out, with the return to aluminium after years of telling us how superior titanium is and that aluminium is for cheap losers (paraphrasing). But it looks striking, the contrast between the aluminium and the ceramic shield on the back is beautiful.
I got the iPhone 17 Pro in Cosmic Orange, and I am obsessed with how bright, bold and daring it looks. It’s a phone that makes a statement, which is so refreshing after years of premium phones being afraid of whimsy. I got the iPhone 17 Pro Max in the equally beautiful, yet significantly more understated Deep Blue. It is, indeed, a very deep blue. Almost black. But it has so much personality that I love it.
Set up was, as always, extremely straightforward, particularly moving from another iPhone. But moving from an Android is more straightforward than it was even five years ago, if you’re going that route.
iPhone 17 Pro Max specifications and price
| iPhone 17 Pro | iPhone 17 Pro Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Display | 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR display OLED 2622 x 1206 resolution 120Hz adaptive refresh rate 3,000 nits peak brightness | 6.9-inch Super Retina XDR display OLED 2868 x 1320 resolution 120Hz adaptive refresh rate 3,000 nits peak brightness |
| Dimensions | 150 (H) x 71.9 (W) x 8.75 (D) mm 204 grams Aluminium unibody | 163.4 (H) x 78 (W) x 8.75 (D) mm 231 grams Aluminium unibody |
| Processor | A19 Pro chip 6-core CPU 6-core GPU with Neural Accelerators 16-core Neural Engine Hardware-accelerated ray tracing | A19 Pro chip 6-core CPU 6-core GPU with Neural Accelerators 16-core Neural Engine Hardware-accelerated ray tracing |
| Storage | 256GB 512GB 1TB | 256GB 512GB 1TB 2TB |
| Camera | 48MP Fusion Main 48MP Fusion Ultra Wide 48MP Fusion Telephoto (up to 8x optical zoom) 18MP Centre Stage front camera | 48MP Fusion Main 48MP Fusion Ultra Wide 48MP Fusion Telephoto (up to 8x optical zoom) 18MP Centre Stage front camera |
| Battery and charging | Up to 31 hours of video playback MagSafe wireless charging up to 25W | Up to 37 hours of video playback MagSafe wireless charging up to 25W |
| Connectivity | Nano-SIM and eSIM USB-C (Gen 3) Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) Bluetooth 6 NFC Second-generation Ultra Wideband chip | Nano-SIM and eSIM USB-C (Gen 3) Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) Bluetooth 6 NFC Second-generation Ultra Wideband chip |
| Network bands | 5G (sub-6 GHz) with 4×4 MIMO LTE | 5G (sub-6 GHz) with 4×4 MIMO LTE |
| Software | iOS 26 | iOS 26 |
| Durability | IP68 Dust-resistant and water-resistant to a depth of six metres for up to 30 minutes | IP68 Dust-resistant and water-resistant to a depth of six metres for up to 30 minutes |
| Price (RRP) | 256GB: $1,999 512GB: $2,399 1TB: $2,799 | 256GB: $2,199 512GB: $2,599 1TB: $2,999 2TB: $3,799 |
| Warranty | One year | One year |
| Official website | Apple Australia | Apple Australia |
Benchmarking
As you can see from the benchmarking results below, the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max are the most powerful phones on the market. It’s not even close.
This is partially because Apple silicon is unmatched in terms of power, and also because the new iPhone 17 Pro range has been upgraded with a vapour chamber, which helps dissipate heat and spread it more evenly around the phone.
In other words, the chip can run at full speed for longer, the phone is more comfortable to hold while gaming, and you can get better graphical performance for longer periods of time.
| Phone | CPU single-core | CPU multi-core | GPU |
| Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max | 3,768 | 9,443 | 45,451 |
| Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max | 3,350 | 8,021 | 32,719 |
| iPhone Air | 3,115 | 6,593 | 37,754 |
| Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra | 2,360 | 8,911 | 14,671 |
| Apple iPhone 16e | 2,679 | 6,144 | 23,732 |
| Google Pixel 10 Pro | 2,317 | 6,455 | 3,233 |
| Xiaomi Poco F6 | 1,899 | 4,734 | 8,762 |
| Motorola Edge 60 Pro | 1,432 | 4,695 | 9,107 |
| Google Pixel 9a | 1,716 | 3,895 | 8,011 |
| Samsung Galaxy A56 | 1,364 | 3,898 | 6,539 |
| Motorola Edge 60 Fusion | 1,050 | 3,014 | 2,581 |
There is no task that I’ve thrown at the iPhone 17 Pro Max that it hasn’t been able to do easily, whether that be AAA gaming or editing a really big video. It’s frankly shocking how good it is.
Camera
Having now taken dozens, if not hundreds, of photos with each of the phones in the iPhone 17 lineup, I can confidently say that the iPhone 17 Pro range has the best cameras, which is to be expected, and better cameras than the previous iPhones, which is nice.
The main reason why you’d get an iPhone Pro phone over the rest of the iPhone 17 range is because you want a good optical zoom. Yeah, Ultra Wide is nice, but it’s the telephoto camera people need for concerts, the zoo, and trying to read the sign that tells you how long before the next tram comes before you cross the road to the stop. Sure, you can use digital zoom to get in close to see what’s going on on the stage, but the image comes out noisy and generally looks bad.
Look at these lions. At 1x zoom, you can see that there is, indeed, a lion. At 2x zoom on the regular iPhone 17 and 17 Pro Max, you can get a better sense of there being a lion. Zooming to 8x on the 17 Pro Max, you can see the lion yawn and act like a giant cat. The image (essentially cropped from the 4x telephoto lens) looks clean.
You almost can’t tell that I was really far away, safely on the other side of some glass. The grass looks true to life, if perhaps a touch drier, and the texture on the lion’s mane looks good.
My favourite examples are these jellyfish photos. I am mesmerised by them. These were taken in the low light of a tank that had been a bit scratched up at the Melbourne Zoo, and yet they just pop so well. I love all the details and the way the light has come through. Generally, these photos make me excited about using these cameras more, and now I want to go to the aquarium.
The selfie camera has been upgraded from 12MP to 18MP, which is nice. But what’s best is that you can now shoot in portrait or landscape regardless of how you’re holding the phone. That means you can take a selfie holding the phone in whichever orientation feels comfortable to you, and adjust the angle of the photo to suit how many people you want to fit in it. It’s such a simple change, yet so good.
To low-light photography, and while the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra has made this scene look a lot brighter, the Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max photo looks far more natural and has less noise. Plus, even with dark mode off, the iPhone captured more light, while the Samsung just looks almost black. Reality was closer to the iPhone’s colouring in the dark.
Gaming
I’ve played a bunch of games, mostly Pokémon TCG Pocket, but also NBA 2K25 Arcade, Sonic Racing, as well as other Apple Arcade and Xbox Game Cloud games.
Hot damn, does this phone perform well. The frame rates stayed smooth at max graphics settings, and the larger screen remains comfortable to hold and play on.
This is the iPhone for gamers as well as productivity multitaskers and keen photographers.
Battery
While I’ve generally been happy with the battery life of the Pro Max iPhones, now that I spend all my days taking photos of a toddler and then playing ranked in Pokémon TCG Pocket for hours on end, I’ve found my iPhone 16 Pro Max battery dying around 9 PM (after taking it off charge at 6 AM).
This has not been a problem with the iPhone 17 Pro Max. At all. Yesterday, after leaving my screen on Focus Friend for five hours, taking photos on and off for three hours, and then playing two hours of TCG Pocket (plus my usual calls, texts and heavy social media use), I hit 20% battery at around 10 PM.
Anytime I have to fly anywhere, I usually take a battery pack with me because I know my phone will run out of juice on the flight home. I’m heading to Sydney tomorrow, and I decided I’ll probably be fine without it. Not having to worry about battery life on my phone is the dream.
Light users might even get away with only charging once every two days. It’s wild. This is the best battery I’ve ever had in an iPhone. This is the revolutionary upgrade for me.
Who is the iPhone 17 Pro Max for?
This is the iPhone for people who would take advantage of a bigger screen, extra battery life, and a telephoto lens. If you go to concerts and don’t get tickets down the front, this is for you.
However, if you are still happy with your iPhone 14 Pro Max or newer, this isn’t an essential year to upgrade. There are a lot of benefits to upgrading this year, but if you’re still being served by your current phone, it won’t be life-changing. Even the 13 Pro Max is a borderline case, though more on the side of upgrading for those who would like to.
Anything older than an iPhone 11 isn’t eligible for the upgrade to iOS 26, so an upgrade for you is more essential. The iPhone 12 generation would benefit enormously, though there’s still another year of iOS updates to be enjoyed.
The Pro range is an entirely different beast to the iPhone Air. However, determining whether significantly more battery life and the ability to zoom are worth $600 over the base iPhone 17 is up to you.
For me, if I were keeping my phone for 3+ years, I’d say having those extra features is worth $200 a year to me. It’s what I advised my friend when he asked. But for you, it all comes down to how you use your phone and what you value more.
GadgetGuy occasionally uses affiliate links and may receive a small commission from purchased products.
