This year’s iPhone Pros bring an almost unusual amount of changes, including an all-new build and two new cameras, in addition to the typical chipset upgrades. As is customary, Apple has discontinued the previous-gen Pros, but retailers and carriers have plenty of stock, so it’s worth exploring whether saving some money and going for last year’s iPhone 16 Pro Max is a good idea or the new 17 Pro Max is the go-to option. Plus, many 16 Pro Max owners are certainly considering an upgrade. Let’s see!
Table of Contents:
Design
Display
Battery Life
Charging
Speaker Test
Performance
Cameras
Verdict
For starters, you can compare the complete specs sheets or directly continue with our editor’s assessment in the following text.
Size comparison
Perhaps the most obvious and in many ways most significant development this year is the iPhone 17 Pro’s build – titanium is out, aluminum is in (or back in, depending on how you look at it). That hasn’t affected size and weight in any major way, though – Pro Maxes are about as large as conventional non-bendy smartphones come (larger and heavier than some full-size foldables too).
While the 17 Pro Max is a few grams heavier, you won’t really be feeling the difference, but the smoother back edges just might make it a bit more comfortable to hold. There are sharp edges on it too, however – the camera plateau’s anodization layer may be prone to chipping off, so the new model might show more signs of use than the glass-titanium 16 Pro Max, given enough time (and/or neglect).
Both generations are IP68-rated for dust and water resistance and Apple says they should be good after being submerged as deep as 6m for 30 minutes. How long that will last does depend on how the phone’s body will take inevitable hits and drops and dings, but there’s no realistic way of telling which is better.
Colorways are different between the two generations, and the 17 Pro Max has that spicy Cosmic Orange that’s turning heads, the blue that’s both good looking and understated, and the most incognito of all three – Silver. The old model’s four colorways are more muted and there’s a black-ish variant, if you’re into that.
Display comparison
Not much has changed between these two generations when it comes to the display, though there is one key difference in what covers the panels – the new one’s Ceramic Shield 2 is harder to scratch than the first-gen on the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and in addition to that it has an antireflective treatment.
Other than that, it’s still a 6.9-inch panel with adaptive 120Hz refresh rate and Dolby Vision support. Apple has tweaked brightness somewhat, now promising 1600nits in HDR versus the 2000nits on the previous model, but potentially allowing 3000nits in some cases. In our testing, the iPhone 17 Pro was good for 800nits when adjusting the slider manually vs 900nits on the 16 Pro Max.
Last year’s model would also boost to 1800-ish nits under our test conditions while the 17 Pro Max would only do a thousand. That said, both phones will happily put out numbers way into the 2000s for smaller illuminated patches – we go to about 2,700nits on the 17 Pro Max and 2,200-ish nits on the 16 Pro Max, so maybe the new model does have an advantage, just not one you can readily measure. Regardless – great displays on either one.
Battery life
The iPhone 17 Pro Max got a minor battery capacity bump to 4,832mAh, up from the 4,685mAh powerpack of the 16 Pro Max. If you’re in the eSIM only regions (of which there are more this year), the increase is a bit more noticeable – to 5,088mAh. We’ve tested the 17 Pro Max that does have a physical SIM slot and thus the smaller battery.
In our experience, the 17 Pro Max brings modest to moderate improvements in endurance in video playback and gaming, at the expense of a minor decrease in web browsing (and a more significant but ultimately less important call time drop). Both Pro Maxes are generally better than anything Android has to offer, but between them the differences aren’t too major.
Charging speed
Charging speed on iPhones is rarely something we talk about with any degree of satisfaction but the 17 generation makes significant strides in that area. The adoption of a new standard (the AVS extension of the Power Delivery protocol) and the launch of a new adapter (’40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max’) are only part of the story though, and we can’t imagine they’re the operative part – Apple just finally decided to adopt more sensible charging curves.
We didn’t have that specific adapter for testing since it’s only available in limited parts of the world. But even with other makers’ Power Delivery chargers (and aftermarket ones too) we got a substantial improvement in top-up speeds with the 17 Pro Max, compared to the 16 Pro Max. We also did fall a little short of Apple’s promise for 50% in 20minutes (we got 47% at most), so it’s possible that the in-house adapter does take it that extra mile. Either way, a decisive win for the new model here.
There is also support for fast wireless charging for up to 25W via MagSafe as well as third-party Qi2-compliant chargers.
Speaker test
The two Pro Maxes have speaker systems that are the same in principle, with a dedicated bottom-firing unit and the earpiece teaming up to form a stereo system. The 17 Pro Max’s drivers are both that tiny bit smaller than on the 16 Pro Max and that may have something to do with the lower loudness results we’re getting from this year’s phone. Apple toned down the mids a bit (which could explain the loudness decrease), but if anything that just might have made the 17 Pro Max sound more composed and overall better. Both are great options, of course.
Performance
The iPhone 17 Pro Max is powered by the Apple A19 Pro chipset – that’s one more than the A18 Pro in the 16 Pro Max. It’s still got a 6-core CPU with a 2+4 core configuration but there are newer cores that are also clocked higher. The GPU is improved too, and so too should be the NPU, but both maintain the same core count as on the previous model.
The new generation comes with 12GB of RAM vs. the 8GB of the 16 Pro Max. The 17 Pro Max can be had with up to 2TB of storage while the older model maxes out at 1TB, and both have 256GB base versions.
Apple is also making a moderately big deal out of the newly implemented vapor chamber cooling solution, which works in tandem with the aluminum body to get heat away from the chips faster than the previous model’s setup could.
Benchmark performance
The iPhone 17 Pro Max showed significant improvements in performance over the already pretty powerful 16 Pro Max. The difference is most notable in GPU tasks, but there’s also an advantage in CPU performance. We observed a meaningful improvement in sustained load so long as it was specifically on the CPU – long-term GPU stability wasn’t as impressive. In any case, the new model is, indeed, more powerful – as it should be.
Camera comparison
The 17 Pro Max brings a couple of improvements to the camera system – a new telephoto camera and a new selfie shooter. The telephoto is now offering 4x zoom and features a 48MP 1/2.55″ sensor in place of the 5x 12MP 1/3.06″ configuration of the predecessor.
The front facing camera of the 17 Pro Max, on the other hand, will get you 18MP shots at 20mm in either portrait or landscape orientation without rotating the phone, while the 16 Pro Max’s 12MP 23mm selfies can only match the phone’s orientation – so last year.
Meanwhile, the main camera and the ultrawide remain unchanged this generation, at least looking at the specs.