Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max review

Display

The iPhone 17 Pro Max packs a 6.9-inch Super Retina XDR OLED screen with ProMotion tech (a term Apple uses to describe variable 120Hz refresh rate). The panel hasn't changed much since the iPhone 16 Pro Max - it has the same resolution of 1320 x 2868 pixels or 460ppi, and the same pill-shaped cutout.

The screen is protected by a new Ceramic Shield Glass 2 with anti-reflective coating - not only do we get sturdier glass, but the overall legibility under bright light has improved. The difference in the reflectivity between the 16 Pro Max and the 17 Pro Max is not jaw-dropping, but it is noticeable.

The screen dynamically switches from 1Hz to 120Hz, supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision content, and True Tone adjustments for the color temperature depending on the light around the phone.

Apple advertises the display as capable of 1 nit of minimal, 1,000 nits of maximum manual, up to 1,600 nits of peak HDR, and up to 3,000 nits of maximum automatic (outdoor) brightness.

Our measurements confirm these numbers, sort of. We indeed got the screen down to 1 nit of brightness on white color.

Then we measured 804 nits of maximum manual and exactly 1,000 nits of maximum automatic brightness with our usual test patches.

Finally, we measured the peak brightness at a 15% white square (that is to say 15% of the screen are lit up) - 2,652 nits. It will reach 3,000 nits on an even smaller patch for sure. But if we go from 15% white square to 75%, we saw the display keep over 1,600 nits for a couple of seconds before going down to 1,000 nits.

Our take on those readings is the display is very much capable of reaching high brightness when needed, just not when you command it to. Its sunlight legibility, for example, is excellent thanks to the new antireflective coating and properly bright screen. The loss of color is quite minimal.

With ProMotion you get no control over the refresh rate. It is a dynamic one, and it drops down to 1Hz for static pictures and always-on/standby modes.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision and it is recognized by all known apps as such. Apple does its HDR video playback in a very flexible way since it's not necessary for the content to be displayed fullscreen for HDR to work. It can just work on the portion of the display that has the video playing, which is a bit of a surreal experience the first time you encounter it.

There are a handful of smartphones that deserve praise for their haptics, and the iPhones are certainly among them. The Taptic engine provides accurate and pleasant feedback, and we loved it.

Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max battery life

The iPhone 17 Pro Max got a minor battery capacity bump to 4,832mAh if you're in one of those regions that gets a version with a physical SIM slot like we do. The eSIM-only variants have a bit more, at 5,088mAh. It's not a huge increase from the 4,685mAh powerpack of the 16 Pro Max, but we'll take what we can get.

The phone does a pretty impressive job with that battery, it has to be said, returning class-leading results across the board (well, at least in the screen-on tests which is what really matters). We clocked just over 12 hours of gaming, 15 and a half hours of web browsing and about 25 and a half hours of video playback. Sure, the call time is merely alright, but who gets a Pro Max for that?

With all the numbers crunched, the iPhone 17 Pro Max's Active Use Score stands at 17:58h - how about that, Pixel?

Our new Active Use Score is an estimate of how long the battery will last if you use the device with a mix of all four test activities. You can adjust the calculation based on your usage pattern using the sliders below. You can read about our current battery life testing procedure here. For a comprehensive list of all tested devices so far, head this way.

Charging speed

The iPhone 17s finally bring some improvements to charging speed, ushering in a new charging standard. Or, rather, it's popularizing a fairly recent addition to the USB Power Delivery spec, called AVS. Apple makes one adapter that explicitly adheres to that specific part of the protocol, the brand new and wonderfully named '40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max', which is only available in North America for the time being, so we couldn't get one. Google's pretty recent 'Pixel Flex Dual Port 67W USB-C Fast Charger' also explicitly states AVS on the tin and we just got a hold of that one, so we tested with it.

Apple promises the Pro Max will get to 50% in 20 minutes when using its new adapter, though it does allow the possibility that other adapters might achieve the same feat "Up to 50% charge in 20 minutes with 40W adapter or higher (available separately) paired with USB-C charging cable", the official specs say.

Well, in our test with the Pixel adapter, we got to 47% in 20 minutes, which is sort of close enough, but also not quite. A charge from 1% to 100% took us 1:12h. The phone and charger agreed on a 15V/3A 45W current and our meter maxed out at 35W while the battery was still close to empty, gradually decreasing, as expected.

The thing is, though, that same protocol that the two shook hands on, we also achieved with a wide selection of aftermarket and other phone makers' own adapters and we did measure essentially the same peak power values. We also clocked a full charge cycle with the Samsung 45W adapter and that turned out marginally slower (63% at 30 minutes, 1:17 to full), though it could just be a run-to-run variation more than a real difference. We are doing our best to get our hands on one of those 'special' Apple adapters, but we're not really expecting miracles.

There is also support for fast wireless charging for up to 25W via MagSafe and this year there's apparently third-party Qi2-compliant chargers that can also reach such values - not just Apple's own pucks. We had one of those for testing and we confirmed the promised 50% top up from flat in 30 minutes, with the power meter showing some 29W at the input end of the charging pad.

Naturally, there's a Battery Health option, which should help prolong the cell's lifespan - you can set the charge limit between 80% and 100%. Also, the Optimized Charging feature will learn your charging habits and minimize the time the battery spends at 100%. You can see the cycle count and battery health in the battery settings, too.

Speakers

The iPhone 17 Pro Max has a hybrid stereo setup with a full-fledged bottom speaker and the earpiece pulling a double duty.

The pair sounds incredibly well in real life, balanced and boomy.

The speakers scored a Good mark on our loudness test, a step back from the previous model. We couldn't hear the difference in real life, but obviously there is one.

The sound quality has changed a bit, too, though we can still rate it is a Very Good. Apple tweaked the speakers so they can offer good bass and treble, the vocals could use a small boost, too.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.