The longest-lasting iPhone ever, with a telephoto that finally reaches.

Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max

Apple

The vapor chamber and 5,088 mAh cell make this the iPhone for people who film, game, and travel hard and hate hunting for a charger. You pay top dollar and give up night portraits and one-handed comfort — if you want small or cheap, this isn't it.

Apple's biggest Pro rethink in years swaps titanium for a heat-forged aluminum unibody and, for the first time, a vapor chamber. The payoff is real: it posted the fastest single- and multi-core CPU scores TechRadar recorded this generation, and it holds those speeds under sustained load instead of throttling mid-export. The camera is now three 48MP sensors, and the headline is a new tetraprism telephoto — 8x optical-quality zoom, up from 5x, with smoother steps through the range. Battery is the real story, though: a 5,088 mAh cell rated up to 39 hours of video, the longest in any iPhone, so heavy days end with charge to spare. The screen hits 3,000 nits with ProMotion and a new anti-reflective coating that genuinely helps outdoors. The tradeoffs are specific: Apple quietly dropped Night mode in portraits, the anodized aluminum scratches more easily than the old titanium, and at 6.9 inches and 233g it's a two-handed phone. None of that dents what it is — the most capable iPhone Apple has shipped.

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Last reviewed Jun 27, 2026

What we like

• ✓48MP tetraprism telephoto reaches a true 8x optical-quality zoom
• ✓Best-in-class sustained performance thanks to the new vapor chamber
• ✓Up to 39 hours of video — the longest battery life in any iPhone
• ✓3,000-nit display with a genuinely effective anti-reflective coating

Trade-offs

• −Night mode no longer works in Portrait mode — a real regression
• −Anodized aluminum scratches more easily than last year's titanium
• −At 6.9 inches and 233g it's unwieldy one-handed
• −No charging brick in the box