Phone Comparisons: Apple Iphone 17 Pro Vs Apple Iphone 17 Pro Max

This time around, we’re comparing two of the best Apple smartphones on the market, the Apple iPhone 17 Pro vs Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max . These are the two flagship offerings from the company, the first one is compact, and the other one is the complete opposite. Other than that, the two phones are basically different sides of the same coin. Yes, there are differences, but for the most part, you’re getting the same experience in differently-sized packages.

Both of these smartphones launched last month, so they are basically new. If you’re looking to get the very best the company has to offer, these two phones are it, even though we’d argue that the iPhone 17 is the best purchase for the vast majority of people. If you’re considering these two phones only, we do hope that this article will help you, as we’ll compare them across a number of categories.

• Specs
• Apple iPhone 17 Pro vs Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Design
• Apple iPhone 17 Pro vs Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Display
• Apple iPhone 17 Pro vs Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Performance
• Apple iPhone 17 Pro vs Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Battery
• Apple iPhone 17 Pro vs Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Cameras
• Audio

Specs

Apple iPhone 17 Pro

Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max

Apple iPhone 17 Pro vs Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Design

Design-wise, the two phones are basically the same… but differently-sized. They’re both made out of aluminum and glass. You’ll notice that both phones have flat displays with a centered pill-shaped cutout at the top of their displays. That display hole is referred to as Dynamic Island. Both smartphones also come with rounded corners and very thin bezels around their display. Those bezels are also uniform.

On the right-hand side, there sits a power/lock key and a Camera control key. On the left, you’ll find volume rocker buttons and the Action key. The frame on both phones is predominantly flat, but it does curve towards the edges. If we flip those two phones around, you’ll be able to spot even more differences. The back sides are mostly flat, with a camera bar up top. That camera bar is quite large, and it hosts three cameras in the top-left corner. There’s also a separate glass panel pronounced on the back, to differentiate from the rest of the backplate, it has a different finish and a different shade of the same color.

The iPhone 17 Pro is notably shorter, narrower, and has the same thickness as the Pro Max model. That difference is not that odd considering that one phone has a 6.3-inch panel, and the other ships with a 6.9-inch display. The iPhone 17 Pro is also notably lighter at 206 grams. The Pro Max model weighs 233 grams. Both smartphones are IP68 certified for water and dust resistance. Both of them are also quite slippery in the hand.

Apple iPhone 17 Pro vs Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Display

The Apple iPhone 17 Pro features a 6.3-inch LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED display. That panel is flat, and it has a 120Hz refresh rate (1-120Hz). HDR10 is supported here, as is Dolby Vision. This panel goes up to 3,000 nits of brightness. The screen-to-body ratio is at around 89%, while the display aspect ratio is 19.5:9. The resolution this display offers is 2622 x 1206 pixels. The panel here is protected by the Ceramic Shield 2, and it has an anti-reflective coating on top.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max, on the other hand, features a 6.9-inch LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED display. That panel also goes up to 120Hz (1-120Hz) in terms of refresh rate, and it supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision content. The peak brightness is 3,000 nits. The screen-to-body ratio here is around 90%, while the display aspect ratio is 19.5:9. The resolution on offer is 2868 x 1320 pixels. This display is also protected by the Ceramic Shield 2, and it also comes with an anti-reflective coating.

These two displays are pretty much the same in terms of usage. Yes, the iPhone 17 Pro Max’s is slightly sharper, but due to the difference in their size, they won’t look any different sharpness-wise. They’re also completely identical in almost every way, except for the size. They’re vivid, sharp, and have great viewing angles. That anti-reflective coating also makes a difference compared to many other displays. Only the Gorilla Armor and Armor 2 do a better job of fighting off glare.

Apple iPhone 17 Pro vs Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Performance

The Apple 19 Pro fuels both of these smartphones. That is Apple’s most powerful processor to date. It’s a 3nm hexa-core chip that comes with 6 GPU cores. It’s one of the most powerful mobile processors on the market, and great when it comes to power efficiency. That chip is paired with 12GB of RAM in both of these smartphones, and both devices use NVMe flash storage, too.

Neither of these two handsets offers storage expansion, by the way, so keep that in mind. The version you get is the one you’re stuck with storage-wise. You’ll be glad to hear that the performance is excellent on both smartphones. They perform the same, basically, which is to be expected due to identical hardware. They’re very snappy day-to-day, there’s not even a hint of lag anywhere, which is good to hear.

Even if you’re planning to do a lot of gaming, these two smartphones are the way to go as far as Apple’s new iPhone lineup is concerned. Overheating is not a problem at all, and the gaming performance is outstanding. You can play basically any game from the App Store without a hitch. The larger phone is the better choice for size reasons, but the performance is the same on both of them. They can get warm, but not too warm.

Apple iPhone 17 Pro vs Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Battery

Now, when batteries are concerned, both of these phones come in two versions. The eSIM-only model comes with a larger battery. The iPhone 17 Pro’s eSIM model has a 4,252mAh battery, while the iPhone 17 Pro Max’s has a 5,088mAh unit. The nano SIM versions of the two devices come with 3,998mAh and 4,832mAh battery packs, respectively. Just to be clear, we’ve used eSIM versions of the two phones.

Is the battery life any good on these two? It’s not only good, it’s outstanding. That goes for the Pro Max model especially, even though the iPhone 17 Pro also has great battery life. We’ve been able to cross the 7-hour of screen-on-time on both of these phones without a problem, with plenty of battery in the tank. On some days, we’ve been able to go well above that on the iPhone 17 Pro Max. The battery life will not be an issue regardless of which model you end up choosing.

These two phones peaked at 35W in terms of wired charging, while they also support 25W MagSafe wireless charging and 4.5W reverse wired charging. The iPhone 17 Pro takes around an hour and 20 minutes to fully charge, while the iPhone 17 Pro Max can there a bit sooner, as it holds higher charging levels throughout the charging process. It’ll take you a bit longer than an hour and 10 minutes to charge it. Do note that a charger is not included in the box with either phone.

Apple iPhone 17 Pro vs Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: Cameras

What about the cameras? Well, the two phones have the exact same cameras, which is a good thing. All you need to decide is what size of phone you need. A 48-megapixel main camera sits on the back of the two devices. That camera has a 1/1.28-inch sensor size. It is backed by a 48-megapixel ultrawide unit (1/2.55-inch sensor size, 120-degree FoV). The last camera on the back is also a 48-megapixel unit, and it also has a 1/2.55-inch sensor size. That is a periscope telephoto camera with a 4x optical zoom.

Both phones also have an 18-megapixel selfie camera, which uses a square sensor and thus allows you to shoot both portrait and landscape content without rotating your phone. That camera is also quite good, actually, there’s really not much to complain about. What about the rear cameras, though, are they any good? Yes, they are, very much so. Also, the two phones shoot the exact same photos, which is logical considering the identical hardware.

Apple managed to improve things even further with the iPhone 17 series, mostly via processing. The colors are now even better than they were, and the photos are well-balanced. Both phones are very reliable in terms of shooting photos, and they’re the best around when it comes to shooting videos. Even in low light, the content looks very good. We wouldn’t say these are the best camera smartphones around when it comes to photos, not even close, but they sure are very good.

Audio

What about audio? Well, both smartphones do include stereo speakers, but the output is not the same. The iPhone 17 Pro Max is notably louder in terms of audio output, while the quality of the sound is also better.

Neither of these two smartphones has an audio jack. You can, however, connect your headphones to their Type-C ports. Alternatively, both smartphones do offer Bluetooth 6.0 for wireless audio.