Xiaomi 17 Pro Max review

Two LTPO OLED displays

As we already established, the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max has two displays - one on the front and one on the back. Both are based on the same LTPO OLED technology and support the same features: 12-bit color depth, 2160Hz PWM, 120Hz refresh rate, and pretty much all the HDR standards you'd need—HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and HDR Vivid. Also, both are completely flat with skinny bezels.

Admittedly, this feature set is a bit of an overkill for the secondary display, since it's mostly used for contextual information and a viewfinder, but kudos to Xiaomi for not cutting corners with it.

The only difference between the two panels is the size and resolution. The front one is 6.9" with a 1200 x 2608px resolution, while the back measures 2.9" diagonally with a 596 x 976px resolution.

When it comes to performance, neither disappoints. In manual mode, we recorded a little over 600 nits, while in auto mode, the two panels boosted a little over 1,000 nits on a 75% white surface, while a 10% patch resulted in more than 3,500 nits. Both values are enough for a comfortable legibility outdoors and an excellent HDR experience.

Refresh rate

Since both displays are LTPO, they support granular refresh rate control. We were only able to verify the main display's behavior, though.

You get two refresh rate modes - Default and Custom. The default one is actually automatic, while the Custom mode lets you cap the refresh rate to either 60 or 120Hz.

We suggest leaving it on Default because the system is smart enough to choose the correct refresh rate depending on the scenario. When the display is idle, it reduces the refresh rate to 1Hz, while every app or system menu boosts it to 120Hz. That includes Chrome and YouTube.

It's not often that we see the YouTube app refresh at 120Hz when just browsing or reading the comments. Only when you start watching a video will the display refresh rate drop down to match the video's frame rate. We tested 24, 30, and 60 fps videos, and the display can match them all.

Battery life

The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max draws power from a 7,500 mAh battery, at least the Chinese version, and runs on the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset. Since this is the first phone we test with this SoC, we don't know what to expect in terms of efficiency.

However, the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max blasts through the competition with more than impressive battery life. It could be due to the large battery capacity, but we believe that the chipset, display and software have a say in this as well.

The device achieved a 20:50 hours Active Use Score, which puts it right up there with the best. It only falls short of the Oppo Find X9 Pro among the devices we've tested recently.

The most impressive scores are the web browsing and video playback runtimes.

Charging speed

The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max supports a slightly updated 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging using Xiaomi's proprietary chargers. The handset should also allegedly play nicely with 100W PD + PPS chargers.

Despite the massive increase in battery capacity, the 7,500 mAh battery charges surprisingly fast and even outpaces other phones with smaller batteries and similar charging rates, like the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, for example. A full charge from 0 to 100% takes about 39 minutes, which is slightly faster than the competition too.

We measured the charging rate throughout the test and found that it peaks at around 75W for the first 10-20% before settling at around 50W for almost the entire charging cycle. The system dials down to 25W after it reaches about 90%, and the battery indicator reaches 100%.

We also tested the phone with a 100W Power Delivery charger with PPS and got similar readings. The phone was able to fully charge for 48 minutes, which is just 9 minutes longer than the stock charger. It was a bit slower at the 30-minute mark, too, but the difference is rather negligible.

All in all, not only is the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max incredibly fast to charge, but the results with the USB PD charger give us peace of mind that even if you don't have Xiaomi's 100W HyperCharge charger at hand, you can charge almost as fast using a proper Power Delivery charging brick.

The Battery menu gives you a couple of charging options in case you want to preserve your battery health for longer. You can disable the fast wired or wireless charging and set it to "Standard", or even limit the charging cycle to 80%.

Speakers

The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max features a set of hybrid stereo speakers - one full-fledged speaker at the bottom and another one that doubles as an earpiece at the top. Naturally, the one at the top is slightly quieter.

When it comes to performance, the 17 Pro Max isn't the loudest in its class, but it appears to be about average, earning a "Good" -26.1 LUFS score. However, the speaker's quality impressed us.

We all know that the iPhones have one of the best speakers in town, and the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max gets pretty close, maybe even better, in our opinion. The sound is clean, even at high volume levels, and the bass is prominent, giving tracks that much-needed fullness and warmth. And perhaps just as important, the vocals remain crisp and well-pronounced, despite the strong bass. They even sound better than the iPhone 17 Pro Max, which is something.

When compared to other Android flagships, nothing comes close to the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max in terms of sound quality, including the Xiaomi 15 Ultra.

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.