Review: The iPhone 17 Pro Max is a mighty workforce

Something odd has happened to Apple’s iPhone lineup. For years, the company’s “Pro” iPhones were not only the most capable phones bearing an Apple logo, but also the most desirable.

Now, with the introduction of iPhone Air, the iPhone 17 Pro Max feels different. It’s still the best phone Apple sells, and possibly the best phone you can buy, period. But the iPhone Air’s slim profile and feather-light weight have, in a way, exposed the iPhone 17 Pro Max as the pickup truck you use for work, rather than the sports car Apple wants it to be. (And like your work truck, it's also prone to scratching.)

I’ve spent about a week with the new iPhone 17 Pro Max (Apple also sent me the iPhone 17 Pro, but I'm still fully testing that one), and I was thrilled with the phone’s long battery life, excellent cameras, and, simply, the fact that this is the iPhone that has it all. It’s the right phone for me, the tech nerd. But I can’t escape the fact that the iPhone Air is, well, prettier.

Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Price and specs

The new Apple iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max have a new chip, larger battery, improved cameras, and more storage — a pretty thorough set of improvements across the board. The difference between the two phones are only in size, weight, and battery life, which is rated as lasting roughly 20% longer on the Pro Max. Oh, and you can only get the iPhone 17 Pro Max with 2TB of storage space; the iPhone 17 Pro only goes up to 1TB.

Here are the key specs for the iPhone 17 Pro Max:

• Display: 6.9-inch, Super Retina XDR display with 120Hz refresh rate

• Design: Aluminum unibody with Ceramic Shield on front and back

• Rear cameras: 48 megapixel triple rear camera array with 8x optical-quality zoom

• Front camera: 18-megapixel selfie camera

• Processor: Apple A19 Pro chip with a 6-core CPU, 6-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine

• Storage: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB

• Battery life: Up to 39 hours of video playback (33 hours for the iPhone 17 Pro)

• Fast charging: Up to 50 percent of charge in 20 minutes with a 40W adapter or higher

• Software: iOS 26

• Special features: 3,000 nit brightness, vapor chamber cooling system

As for the price, I don't have a lot of good news. The iPhone 17 Pro starts at $1,099, while the iPhone 17 Pro Max starts at $1,199, both a hundred bucks more than last year's Pro models. At least the Pro now starts with 256GB of storage instead of only 128GB.

Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Design and display

The new Pro models have an entirely new design compared to the previous models. The body is made of aluminum instead of titanium, forgoing some glamour but shedding weight and improving thermal conductivity. The edges of the phone are now pleasantly soft to the touch, and the side buttons are all in the right place, except for the Camera Control button, which I kept pressing by accident until I fully disabled it from the Settings (the Camera Control button was introduced with the previous model; I didn’t like it then, either).

The three-piece camera system is now placed on an elongated plateau on the back, with a rectangular surface area below, which has a slightly lighter color than the rest of the phone.

The way this all ties together depends a lot on the color. The funky orange is an eye-catcher, and it fits the new design well, even giving it a sort of a heavy machinery feel. Apple sent me a Pro Max in Deep Blue, and the Pro in Silver, and I’m not crazy about either. The Silver accentuates the lighter surface area on the back too much, and it looks like something should be there but isn’t. Deep Blue is more subdued and quite nice in itself, but I still didn’t mind placing it in the new TechWoven case which covers the odd rectangle on the back.

A quick word on TechWoven: I like it. It feels like a more robust take on FineWoven and that’s exactly what was required, given FineWoven’s propensity to wear down rapidly after a few months of use. The aesthetic fits the Pro models, though it’s not ideal for the gentle figure of the iPhone Air. There’s a reason why a lot of people choose the green TechWoven case with the orange iPhone 17 Pro; it looks like something that came out of a video game.

A word of warning: As many users have noticed, the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro max are prone to scratching, so don't forget to invest in an iPhone 17 Pro Max case.

The 6.9-inch display hasn’t changed much from the previous generation, but it’s now more resistant to cracks and scratches, thanks to the new Ceramic Shield 2. It also has higher peak brightness (3,000 vs. 2,000 nits on the previous model) and anti-reflective coating, which do make a noticeable difference in sunlight.

No matter what you think of the design, there’s no question that the iPhone 17 Pro Max is a big, heavy phone (this is particularly apparent if you’ve ever held the iPhone Air). With the TechWoven case on and my Apple Wallet magnetically attached to the back, this thing is a unit. While I do think a case is a good idea, I’ll probably ditch it try my luck without it, because the added heft was just too much for me.

Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Performance and AI

My daily driver prior to switching to the 17 Pro Max was Apple’s “affordable” model, the iPhone 16e. Even though these phones are separated by just one generation of Apple silicon, the iPhone 17 Pro Max felt a lot faster and a lot smoother, thanks to the new, A19 chip inside, and the 120Hz ProMotion display. The battery lasted longer, the cameras were vastly better; frankly, it was night and day. Don’t let anyone tell you that phones don’t improve much these days; it’s not true.

You can spec the Pro with up to 2TB of storage, which I think makes sense exclusively for video creators. I’ve tested the variant with 1TB, but I could easily make do with half as much.

When Apple introduced iOS 26 and its new Liquid Glass user interface, I installed the first developer beta and was instantly worried that this new look slows down the phone too much. I’m happy to say that Apple managed to polish this to the point that I’ve experienced no obvious slowdowns with the latest version of iOS 26 installed on the iPhone 17 Pro Max. I love the look, and I love the fact that you can customize it to be as “liquidy” as you prefer. Even when I turned on all of the visual pizzaz, the phone was still very fast.

Everyday tasks such as texting, browsing, and watching videos won’t really push this phone to the limit. But playing a game for several hours will run the chips inside hot. This is why Apple added a vapor chamber cooling system to the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max which - combined with the aluminum case - should make the phone a lot cooler while gaming. My game of choice on a phone is PUBG, and after an hour of (very smooth) gaming, the iPhone did get slightly hot, but never to the point that it became a problem.

Apple's take on AI is still not the best. Siri is supposed to be smarter (mostly through integration with OpenAI's ChatGPT), but ask about something more complex than the weather and you'll often get the old "I didn't get that, could you try again" response.

Other features such as Image Playground are neat, but a far cry from the stuff you can do with freely (or cheaply) available tools online.

Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: The cameras are amazing

The triple 48-megapixel camera system on this phone is the best I’ve ever tried. The main sensor captures rich and detailed photos. Low light photography is so good that you can snap a shot in near-total darkness and get a photo that looks like it was taken during the day.

Zoom is particularly good, and it’s not just a parlor trick. If you snap a photo at 1x and zoom in digitally, you won’t be nowhere near the amount of detail that you can get with 2x, 4x, or 8x zoom. On the flip side, the photo quality is quite consistent up to 4x zoom, and even at 8x zoom (which lowers the photo resolution to 12 megapixels) the quality is pretty great. This means that you should use the zoom feature on this phone, and use it often.

But perhaps the best thing about this camera system is how seamlessly it all ties together. Most new Android phones have all these capabilities (and more) on paper, but you’ll get mixed results from photo to photo. On the iPhone 17 Pro Max, most of the time you can just snap photos and not worry about time of day or the zoom level you’re using, it all ends up looking great.

The only slightly disappointing element of the rear camera is the ultra-wide sensor, despite the fact that it also has a 48-megapixel resolution. If you go wide, the image will flatten, you’ll lose focus and a considerable amount of detail. It’s still a decent ultra-wide photo, but you should use the main sensor whenever possible.

Videos are equally great. Online, you’ll find videos showcasing the power of the iPhone 17 Pro Max’s camera by zooming in at musicians from far away until you almost get a decent first-row view. The fact that you can get a steady video like this the low-light environment of a concert is incredibly impressive. I've done a similar demonstration in daylight, going from max zoom to 1x magnification; check it out below.

Selfies are pretty great, with Apple adding a new, very cool trick of being able to switch from portrait to landscape. Very useful when taking selfies of a group.

Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Battery life

Battery life was hard to test because it lasted way longer than I expected. In my first couple of days of usage, I kept forgetting about charging, simply because the phone always had enough battery life left. Then I started logging the data, and the phone regularly had about 50% charge after a full day’s use.

Coming up from iPhone 16e, which already has excellent battery life, this is a big improvement. It’s a phone that I can forget to charge twice and still have some juice left on the third day. In fact, I don’t think I need more battery life than what the iPhone 17 Pro Max offers. Sure, more is always better, but this is finally a phone that will last you through that three-leg, two-continent flight you take once in a lifetime.

It also charges fast. Apple says you can get a 50% charge in about 20 minutes with a fast charger. I’ve charged it using my MacBook’s charger and got from 10 to 60% in 25 minutes.

Is the Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max worth it?

The 17 Pro Max is the best iPhone, period. It has a large, beautiful display, excellent cameras, and long battery life. If you can afford it, buy it.

The only potential drawbacks worth considering are the size and the weight. It’s a big, heavy phone, and if you slap on a case (which, again, you probably should), it’s going to be even heavier. The iPhone 17 Pro has almost exactly the same specs, but it’s smaller and lighter, making it a better fit for some people. As for the iPhone Air, it’s the slimmest, nicest-looking, sexiest phone in the new lineup, but its camera system is leagues behind the one on the Pro models.