Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max review

25 September 2025



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  • Anonymous
  • kZ6
  • 25 Sep 2025

Anonymous, 25 Sep 2025So the 3000 nits was a false advertismentNot much critical thinking on your part eh? If they're using the same or better panel, clearly something is wrong, either hardware or software. I've seen one of these in person and it gets very bright.

    Anonymous, 25 Sep 2025So the 3000 nits was a false advertismentNot false just clever marketing like everyone else

      The base iPhone 17 256GB is the star of the show this year. For $799 in US or €989 in Europe you get most of what makes an iPhone a top smartphone:
      Great screen with promotion, great Soc A19, great cameras (only missing telephoto but won't bother everyone), great selfie camera, good battery life etc
      For people with 15 Pro/Max or 16 Pro/Max i'd wait another year for sure!

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • 0p}
        • 25 Sep 2025

        Anonymous, 25 Sep 2025So the 3000 nits was a false advertismentProblem is phone brands make ppl believe that entire screen can go 2800, 3000, 3500 nits when it is 10% at most also complete white image ..

          • ?
          • Anonymous
          • 0p}
          • 25 Sep 2025

          Lack of useless IP69 was a CON against some phones, but not now.
          Curious to know the excuse ..

            Sustained performance is soso... But they must have done that to be able to crank the new chipset and win more benchmarks. Maybe with the same SoC of the iPhone 16 Pro it would have been better at cooling it.
            Battery life is solid here though.
            And jesus, did Pixel 10 get absolutely slaughtered or what this year... And we still haven't seen Sammy's S26 series.

              "the new best iPhone ever"

              Oh, so right. Tim Cook cannot hold himself not to use this cliche each year..

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                • Anonymous
                • 3S1
                • 25 Sep 2025

                The most important specs for the image quality of distant objects are: pixels per angle, effective lens diameter and color filter array (possibly also microlens array).
                The iPhone 17 Pro Max's periscope camera has nearly 73% more pixels per angle than the 16 Pro and it has a slightly larger effective lens diameter (6.03mm) than the 16 Pro (5.59mm), but this only leads to 16% more light per exposure time from an object.

                Here is a list with the relative maximum number of pixels per angle of certain cameras (approximately) (dual pixels are counted as one pixel):

                306795% Extremely Large Telescope at 840nm (infrared) (not built yet)
                115048% Extremely Large Telescope in the visible spectrum (not built yet)
                32069% Hubble Space Telescope (Dec 1993-2002)
                11505% Hubble Space Telescope (2009 - currently)
                891% Nikon P1100 B
                240% Panasonic Tz99 B
                100% Xiaomi 15 Ultra Q²B
                90% BBK Vivo X200 Ultra,X100 Ultra, X200 Pro Q²B
                82% Samsung Galaxy K Zoom B
                74% Honor Magic7 RSR Q²B?
                71% BBK Oppo X7 Ultra, X8 Pro QB
                71% Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom B
                69% BBK Oppo X8 Ultra QB
                62% Xiaomi 14 Ultra QB
                61% Honor Magic7 Pro Q²B?
                61% Google Pixel 7 Pro QB
                59% Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra QB
                57.4% Google Pixel 8 Pro QB
                57.1% Google Pixel 10 Pro 50MP mode QB
                56% Huawei Pura 80 Ultra 212mm cam QBY**
                56% Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra B
                54% Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra B
                54% Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max/17 Pro QB
                53% BBK Vivo X100 Pro QB
                53% Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ B
                48% Huawei Pura 70 Ultra QBY?QB
                46% Huawei P60 Pro QBY
                44% Huawei Pura 80 Ultra 83mm cam 48 MP mode QBY**
                42% Sony Xperia 1 VII B
                42% Lenovo Motorola Edge 50 Ultra QB
                31% Apple iPhone 16 Pro, 15 Pro Max B
                31% Honor Magic6 Pro QB*
                29% Google Pixel 10 Pro/9 Pro B*
                26% Google Pixel 6 Pro B*
                26% Huawei P30 Pro B
                26% Google Pixel 10 B
                23% Asus Zenfone Zoom B
                20% Apple iPhone 15 Pro B
                15% Apple iPhone 7 Plus B
                13% Apple iPhone 17/16/15 QB
                12% Nokia Lumia 1020 B
                6.7% Apple iPhone 14 B

                B= Bayer color filter array
                QB= Quad Bayer color filter array (probably nearly always without Quad Pixel autofocus here), can produce noticeably worse results than Bayer, when the number of pixels per angle is the same
                QBY= Quad Bayer color filter array with yellow pixels and apparently without Quad Pixel autofocus here
                Q²B= Tetra²pixel color filter array (usually with Quad Pixel autofocus, which could reduce the sharpness due to the larger microlenses), should perform worse than Quad Bayer, when the number of pixels per angle is the same
                *= The Pixel 6 Pro actually has a value of 53.0% QB and the Pixel 10 Pro/9 Pro actually has 57.1% QB, but in contrast to the 7 Pro and 8 Pro, they always use analog pixel binning, which leads to 26.49% B for the 6 Pro and 28.54% B for the 10 Pro/9 Pro, though the 10 Pro/9 Pro offer at least a 50 megapixel mode where no binning is used.
                The Honor Magic6 Pro actually has 61.3% Q²B, but it seems to always use at least 4-1 binning, which leads to 31% QB.
                Possibly, there are other phones (Magic7 Pro?) in this list with the same behavior (then the value would be only half as high).
                **=Huawei's specs indirectly indicate a pixel size of 1.22 micrometer, but the full field of view of the 83mm camera is 76mm according to the exif data, this would rather indicate 1.4 micrometer, then the values would be 49% and 38% instead of 56% and 44%

                And here is a list with the corresponding maximum effective diameter of the objective at the highest zoom factors:

                39300mm Extremely Large Telescope (not built yet)
                2400mm Hubble Space Telescope
                67.4mm Nikon P1100
                20.2mm Panasonic Tz99
                10.05mm Huawei Pura 80 Ultra 83mm cam
                9.90mm BBK Vivo X200 Ultra
                9.89mm Honor Magic7 RSR
                9.65mm Xiaomi 15 Ultra
                8.56mm Huawei Pura 80 Ultra 212mm cam
                8.42mm BBK Vivo X100 Ultra, X200 Pro
                8.02mm BBK Oppo X8 Ultra
                7.76mm Xiaomi 14 Ultra
                7.14mm Huawei Pura 70 Ultra
                6.98mm Samsung Galaxy K Zoom
                6.93mm Huawei P60 Pro
                6.83mm Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom
                6.63mm BBK Vivo X100 Pro
                6.53mm Huawei Mate 40 Pro+
                6.43mm Google Pixel 8 Pro
                6.40mm Google Pixel 10 Pro/9 Pro
                6.24mm Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
                6.03mm Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max, 17 Pro
                5.92mm Honor Magic7 Pro, Magic6 Pro
                5.59mm Apple iPhone 16 Pro, 15 Pro Max
                5.55mm Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra
                5.54mm Lenovo Motorola Edge 50 Ultra
                5.47mm Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, S24 Ultra
                5.43mm Sony Xperia 1 VII, 1 VI
                5.43mm Google Pixel 7 Pro
                5.20mm BBK Oppo X7 Ultra, X8 Pro
                4.66mm Google Pixel 10
                4.25mm Huawei P30 Pro
                3.73mm Apple iPhone 17
                3.21mm Apple iPhone 15 Pro
                2.7mm Nokia Lumia 1020
                2.38mm Asus Zenfone Zoom
                2.36mm Apple iPhone 7 Plus

                The larger the effective diameter
                1. the more light from a distant object is captured per exposure time
                2. the better is the maximum theoretical resolution of the objective regarding distant objects due to diffraction
                3. the larger are the bokeh balls

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                  • Mills
                  • kB5
                  • 25 Sep 2025

                  No battery in the packaging is STILL a con?

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                    • Anonymous
                    • 3S1
                    • 25 Sep 2025

                    I accidentally hit the submit button in my previous comment.

                    This year I was very surprised because now Apple's digital zoom doesn't look artificial anymore. I tested it in a store. It doesn't make distant text look like hieroglyphics anymore. I'd say it produces by far the most natural iPhone digital zoom results since a long time ago.

                    It's really hard to find a smartphone camera nowadays that produces natural zoom results. The iPhone really surprised me in this regard because previous iPhones produced so artificial zoom results.

                    The Pixel 7 Pro and Pixel 8 Pro belong to the smartphones that produce the most natural results at 15x in good light conditions. I compared the iPhone 17 Pro at 15x with my Pixel 7 Pro in a store and the iPhone looked nearly as natural as the Pixel 7 Pro. The iPhone also had nearly the same level of detail. I was surprised. For example, the iPhone 15 Pro Max performs much worse (I compared it two years ago with my Pixel 7 Pro).

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                      • Anonymous
                      • 3S1
                      • 25 Sep 2025

                      "But the thing is, the iPhone 16 Pro isn't doing too bad at 8x either - its photos just might be that extra bit sharper, if a little bit grainier. So far, no real advantage coming from the new telephoto camera then."

                      I completely disagree. Your sample images show that the 16 Pro looks more artificial at 8x. The reason is that Apple uses a lot of AI for 8x.

                      But the difference is really obviously when you take photos of a distant sign. I tested it in a store. Every year I am disappointed how artificial Apple's digital zoom looks and how it makes text look like hieroglyphics due to AI. But I was very shrprise

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                        • Nenek Lampir
                        • X@V
                        • 25 Sep 2025

                        in terms of material and design has decreased compared to the 16 Pro Max series. This is more precisely called iPoco 17 Pro Miss

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                          • PanRT
                          • Mrm
                          • 25 Sep 2025

                          Anonymous, 25 Sep 2025So the 3000 nits was a false advertismentOnly on test, for people is 1000nits, big downgrade from IP 16 Pro max 1700+nits
                          All in Apple 17 Pro/max is fake, body, color, zoom, display 🤣

                            The basic iPhone 17 stole the show this year. The Pro Max makes me wait at least a year, just in case the design brightens up next year.

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                              • Anonymous
                              • a3Q
                              • 25 Sep 2025

                              So the 3000 nits was a false advertisment

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