Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max review

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Introduction

It is once again September - and with it comes the new best iPhone ever. The Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max brings a brand-new aluminum body, improved performance and heat dissipation, better selfie and telephoto cameras, a larger battery with faster charging, and is the most comfortable home to the new iOS 26 with Liquid Glass interface.

The latest generation brought a major change - Apple dropped the Plus model in favor of the ultra-thin Air, and now all iPhones have ProMotion screens, a long, long overdue upgrade.

It was about time Apple stopped with the iterative updates and shook things up. And one thing is certain - nothing will be the same as before, for better or worse.

The 17 series see the Pro models switch to an aluminum unibody for the first time, helping keep weight in check and improving heat dissipation. While this was done for practical reasons, the years of hyping steel and titanium may come to bite Apple.

The usual chip and connectivity updates are here courtesy of the Apple A19 Pro SoC, the base memory has been upped to 256 GB for the rest of the lineup, while the Pro Max which was already there last year gains a new 2 TB storage option. The battery life got better, the charging got faster, and iOS got more features.

The two major camera upgrades include a new 18MP Center Stage selfie camera with a square (not quite, but we'll get to that later) sensor and multi-aspect shooting, and a new 48 MP telephoto camera with 4x optical zoom. Oh, and you can now capture 4K120 Dolby Vision clips.

The new signature color is Cosmic orange, which will be familiar to the veterans in the industry from the Nokia N8. Fun fact: that one used anodized aluminum much like the iPhone Pros of this year.

Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max specs at a glance:

• Body: 163.4x78.0x8.8mm, 233g; Glass front (Ceramic Shield 2), aluminum alloy frame, aluminum alloy back/ glass back (Ceramic Shield); IP68 dust tight and water resistant (immersible up to 6m for 30 min), Apple Pay (Visa, MasterCard, AMEX certified).
• Display: 6.90" LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED, 120Hz, HDR10, Dolby Vision, 1000 nits (typ), 1600 nits (HBM), 3000 nits (peak), 1320x2868px resolution, 19.55:9 aspect ratio, 460ppi; Anti-reflective coating.
• Chipset: Apple A19 Pro (3 nm): Hexa-core (2x4.26 GHz + 4x2.6 GHz); Apple GPU (6-core graphics).
• Memory: 256GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 12GB RAM, 1TB 12GB RAM, 2TB 12GB RAM; NVMe.
• OS/Software: iOS 26.
• Rear camera: Wide (main): 48 MP, f/1.6, 24mm, 1/1.28", 1.22µm, dual pixel PDAF, sensor-shift OIS; Telephoto: 48 MP, f/2.8, 100mm, 1/2.55", 0.7µm, PDAF, 3D sensor-shift OIS, 4x optical zoom; Ultra wide angle: 48 MP, f/2.2, 13mm, 120˚, 1/2.55", 0.7µm, PDAF; Depth: TOF 3D LiDAR scanner.
• Front camera: Wide (main): 18 MP multi-aspect, f/1.9, 20mm, PDAF, OIS; Depth: SL 3D.
• Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@24/25/30/60/100/120fps, 1080p@25/30/60/120/240fps, 10-bit HDR, Dolby Vision HDR (up to 120fps), ProRes, ProRes RAW (up to 120fps), Apple Log 2, 3D (spatial) video/audio, stereo; Front camera: 4K@24/25/30/60fps, 1080p@25/30/60/120fps, gyro-EIS.
• Battery: 4832mAh; Wired, PD3.2, AVS, 50% in 20 min, 25W wireless MagSafe/Qi2, 50% in 30 min (15W - China), 4.5W reverse wired.
• Connectivity: 5G; eSIM; Wi-Fi 7; BT 6.0; NFC.
• Misc: Face ID, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer; stereo speakers; Ultra Wideband (UWB) support (gen2 chip), Emergency SOS, Messages and Find My via satellite.

A smaller notch would have been on many people's wishlist, but we guess Apple is not ready to rethink the whole Dynamic Island thing just yet.

Unboxing the Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max

The iPhone 17 Pro Max ships in a super thin paper box that has the phone's back side printed on the cover.

The contents can be referred to as a traditionally Apple, new owners getting braided USB-C cable and a SIM ejection pin if you have a physical SIM slot. That's it.

There is a new charger that was made with the iPhone 17 models in mind, a product that can easily win the worst name of the year award - the 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max adapter. We think it should have been a standard bundle for the first iPhone to adopt the AVS charging protocol, but Apple chose to sell it separately, trying to squeeze an extra $39 from those looking to take advantage of the newly improved charging speed.