iPhone 17 Pro Max iPhone 17 Pro Max is here! First impressions and photos thread

[EugW]

Im thinking about getting the Pro Max(Will be the first time Ive ever had one Im coming from an iphone 13, I need something with a bigger screen the iphone 13 bothers my eyes just too small and the battery life is horrendous, are you happy with yours as far as battery life, etc

I got the 6.7” 12 Pro Max because I wanted bigger text than what the 6.1” 12 Pro offered by default.

I had been running the 12 Pro Max with the Display Zoom setting to Default.



However, in that setting the text is smaller than I prefer so I then enlarged the text sizing mildly in the Display —> Text Size setting.



That covers iOS text and most Apple apps like Messages and Mail, but not Safari. So for Safari I increased the Page Zoom to 115%.



I find this is perfect for my old eyes.

It turns out this is exactly the “Medium” Appearance setting when you first setup the phone.



Large is unnecessarily big for me but Medium is great.

I got a 17 Pro Max and set it up the same way, and while text size was good, I just found the size of this 6.9” phone cumbersome, at least when there is a case on it. I already found the 12 Pro Max awkward with my small hands but the 17 Pro Max was slightly more awkward.

So, I’ve now gone down to a 6.3” 17 Pro with the same Medium appearance setting and it suits me well.



Actually I think the 6.5” Air is also a good size but I must have those three cameras and two speakers, and didn’t want to go with less battery life than the 17 Pro.

 

[JD2015]

Tried out iPhone 17 pro max 256gb in Silver, whilst travelling to New York. Upgraded from the Iphone 15 pro max, the biggest upgrade was in the front and rear cameras. As a solo traveller the selfie camera improvements helped enormously and having the versatility with the different cameras on the rear helped. If you however, start to go past 8 times zoom then I find as i did with the Iphone 15 pro max hand held stabilisation is quite shaky. Photo quality and the photographic styles were excellent. It combines well when using it alongside other apps like , Snapseed and Photomator to make tweaks or apply filters which the stock camera app cannot handle. For portraits, selfies and city/street photography it gives you excellent range. Not so keen on the zoom range which is the same whatever smartphone camera, so if that is what you need would consider a mirrorless camera paired with a good quality lens ultimately to meet this need.

I am a heavy user of my iPhone when travelling as rely upon it for maps. I therefore always go for the Iphone with best battery length. The battery length is good with heavy use and I always would top the phone up as carried a portable battery bank. This would openly be reached for after 3-5 hours of heavy use with maps, listening to music, taking videos and photos, editing photos and checking social media and the news. By then it was between 30-40% battery. I am confident though the phone will last a full day without such heavy usage easily.

I found I used the camera control button only to open the camera app but was nice to have as I prefer to use the action button for other things. Some minor issues I think were mainly IOS 26 related with apps sometimes unresponsive or if i was to swipe up or down, there be no response. Another area which was a challenge was in using a camera clamps on a phone when connecting to a tripod. Because of the clamp it would inevitably press against a button, so I will look to buy a Tripod with a MagSafe holder. Using the phone in bright daylight was helped with the increase brightness which I had to ramp up to max at times. I don’t find phone signal is any better where I live at least which is probably carrier related more than Apple.

BTW when in Apple Store on 5th avenue I checked out all the Iphone 127 pro I and pro max models and didnt see any scratches or scuffs. Also was shocked at how light the IPhone Air was.

 

[john g.]

View attachment 2564108

Which brand & model is this mustard yellow case please?

 

[EugW]

Which brand & model is this mustard yellow case please?

elago MagSafe compatible silicone case - Sunshine colour

I bought mine on Amazon Canada:

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0F61XFPJS

This link to Amazon USA appears to be exact same one:

elago for iPhone 17 Pro Case, Premium Magnetic Silicone Case, Compatible with MagSafe, Liquid Silicone Material, Protective Cover, Shockproof, Slim Phone, 6.3 inch (Sunshine)

elago for iPhone 17 Pro Case, Premium Magnetic Silicone Case, Compatible with MagSafe, Liquid Silicone Material, Protective Cover, Shockproof, Slim Phone, 6.3 inch (Sunshine)

www.amazon.com

(The other one in the pic was the Stone colour, but that one is more of a greige colour not grey, and IMO it doesn't match as well with the Cosmic Orange.)

 

[Tea-Aholic]

elago MagSafe compatible silicone case

Hi EugW.

I was wondering if this case is too rubbery and hard to slip in and out of pockets? And I wanted to know as well if it collects dust and lint easily?

Thanks.

 

[LacrosseChic]

My 17 pro max in silver arrived at work today, and I love it so far. Will take some time getting used to the size, but I already had to type two-handed with the 15 bc I have small hands so shouldn’t be a big deal. Been using it for 8 hours now and it is still at 78% - even with indexing.

 

[EugW]

I was wondering if this case is too rubbery and hard to slip in and out of pockets? And I wanted to know as well if it collects dust and lint easily?

The elago 17 Pro / Pro Max silicone MagSafe case is not especially grippy so it slips in and out of pockets easily, and doesn't collect that much dust. I'd say it's roughly about as slippery as the naked iPhone, which means it's a bit more slippery than I'd like. I actually would prefer it to be a bit more grippy.

Note that although the silicone case for my old 12 Pro Max is more grippy than this elago 17 Pro case, it didn't collect that much dust either.

 

[Tsepz]

Im thinking about getting the Pro Max(Will be the first time Ive ever had one Im coming from an iphone 13, I need something with a bigger screen the iphone 13 bothers my eyes just too small and the battery life is horrendous, are you happy with yours as far as battery life, etc

Very happy with mine, battery life is incredible, you will definitely see a significant improvement coming from the 13.
You will especially love the screen, the fact that you can enjoy such a large, smooth and bright screen then have amazing battery life almost fees like a crime, lol!

What do you typically do most on your phone? And what apps do you typically use daily?

 

[lakerchick4life]

Very happy with mine, battery life is incredible, you will definitely see a significant improvement coming from the 13.
You will especially love the screen, the fact that you can enjoy such a large, smooth and bright screen then have amazing battery life almost fees like a crime, lol!

What do you typically do most on your phone? And what apps do you typically use daily?

I basically just check my email, go on X from time to time, text, thats basically it other than talking on it, the battery life is not good on my phone I think I ruined the battery by charging it so much, in the beginning when I first got it I would charge it when it got down to around 40 percent, then I started charging it when it dropped to 92 percent, so constantly charging it I think I ruined the battery plus its an old phone and its hard to see even with my new reading glasses it still gives me a headache so want something bigger. I have to go check out the phones at the apple store..do you recommend a magsafe charger when I get a new phone? I saw the belkin one online not sure if its good, just kind of tired of always plugging it in and taking it out. Im just waiting for maybe black friday maybe the trade in value will increase on my iphone 13 right now tmobile offers 130 for it and apple offers 200, maybe it will increase in value for black friday?

 

[Daki]

My old phone is a 14pro and my new 17 pro max arrived today. I am happy with my initial snapshots. I intended to wait another year, but my phone is used as my camera 75% of the time and ended up with a new one. This is just me taking random photos, but I am delighted with the result

Moonrise at sunset

 

[Eggtastic]

My old phone is a 14pro and my new 17 pro max arrived today. I am happy with my initial snapshots. I intended to wait another year, but my phone is used as my camera 75% of the time and ended up with a new one. This is just me taking random photos, but I am delighted with the result

Moonrise at sunset

I am in the same boat and also use my camera a lot so debating on taking advantage of the carrier offers to get it highly discounted.

 

[EugW]

I found this amusing.



Very thorough review:

 

[svish]

Just started using my 17 Pro Max in Orange. Very happy with the new phone. Setting everything up. Updated to iOS 26.0.1 immediately. Used the camera a bit. Happy with improvements to zoom. Love the colour and very glad that there is a bright coloured Pro iPhone. Got a Spigen Ultra Hybrid clear case to go with it.

 

[nperei]

I’m having fun with the Max zoom on my iPhone 17 Pro Max. I took a pictures of Harvest Moon the next day with a cloudy sky. I wasn’t sure about cloudy when I took the shot, but it turned out to look cool!

 

[bembol]

Feels so good in the hands, ladies you know the procedures. Flossy.

My only complaint is the OS. I hate this Liquid Glass.

 

[LouisPiper]

Amazing how some of you will eat up ANYTHING a company tells you.

These phones never had overheating issues lol. My iPhone 8 used to run hotter than my 15 does lol. Some users reported overheating phones and it was deemed a software issue. Again, since ios17 the 15,16 have not been overheating enough to call it a widespread issue that requires going back to old materials used lol. I can’t stop laughing at how you think these products don’t under go the most vigorous stress testing before they’re released to the public. Let’s play a game sort these in order from least to most expensive unit

Titanium frames
Aluminum frames
Vapor chamber

If you can accept that these phones go through rigorous testing then you must also accept that Apple must have firm data that the phones did run too hot - or they wouldn’t have made the change.

Also, the concept of rigorous testing being proof that there cannot be an issue is silly. We should have a word for when a company has to call back products and re-manufacture something on them. Recall?

 

[Tsepz]

I found this amusing.

View attachment 2565042

Very thorough review:

View attachment 2565043

The level of quality in a lot of these Chinese YouTube reviewers videos is truly insane, that opening sequence was awesome!

Regarding iPhone weight, it is interesting, the 13 Pro Max and 14 Pro Max were truly heavy, and I think what made it worse was that there was less surface area to spread the weight.
The 17 Pro Max although 231g feels very lite, due to the larger chassis it spreads the weight so much better.

 

[bushman4]

17 PM IS A WINNER

Only dislike is the Aluminum body. while it dissipates heat quite well it will probably dent if dropped No question about it a good case is the answer

 

[CrownVic]

Just got my silver 17 Pro Max today! I love it! It’s a perfect upgrade from my old 14 Pro Max. I’m telling you it looks even better in person! Feels great in the hand, and is lighter than my old 14 Pro Max! Looks good with my new silver iPad A16

 

[Kendo]

Just got my silver 17 Pro Max today! I love it! It’s a perfect upgrade from my old 14 Pro Max. I’m telling you it looks even better in person! Feels great in the hand, and is lighter than my old 14 Pro Max! Looks good with my new silver iPad A16 View attachment 2569194

Agree although I got a regular 17 Pro. First time I ever went with a silver iPhone - I always went for black or dark blue when the color was offered. Even my MacBooks were always Space Gray. Looks even more amazing in the black TechWoven case.

Ironically I am also coming from a 14 Pro and thrilled with the 2x RAM upgrade (6GB to 12GB).

 

[max2]

Wrong topic nm

 

[Tsepz]

View attachment 2564071
View attachment 2564072

I’m feeling super happy that this iPhone 17 Pro Max is snappy and load times with applications are quick, I’m a little skeptical about scratches so I’m being careful. Why does my ocd kick in for Apple products

She is absolutely stunning.
Is this one of the official Apple cases?
I need a thinner case and this I think is perfect.

 

[Marko1965]

Greetings, I received mine a couple of weeks ago, and so far, so good. I was going to choose the orange since it's my favourite colour, but I decided to go with the Deep Blue.

 

[mascdonna]

Picked up a Silver in 512GB today! Upgrading from a 13 Pro Max. The camera is definitely the most noticeable difference so far. Excited for indexing to finish and the battery to start performing at full strength.

 

[Antaris]

A couple weeks in now and am loving my 17 Pro Max overall. The pros easily outweigh any quibbles, but here's what I've come across so far:

Pros:

• Camera - the main reason I'd changed in the first place, thanks to online photo comparisons and DXOMark's review. Testing low-light/night mode and 17PM beats the snot out of S25U. (S25U does win a couple categories, but 17PM wins more and more critical ones.) I never thought taking a photo of my computer's mainboard from 12ft away could be exciting until see the 17PM showing detail contour lines along the RAM modules' green LED row whereas the S25U showed a green blob. Who doesn't love shadow detail?!
• Battery life!! YouTube drains the battery 7% in one hour instead of (far more) on the new high-end Android I previously had
• iOS learning curve is surprisingly small
• Real-time voicemail transcription on screen when not answering a call was unexpected but is a spectacular feature
• Apps' quality - smoother and refined in experience, not anything as buggy as on Android where I had to reboot often
• Performance: Great matching of CPU and GPU power on top of battery life
• The new wallpaper that has the 3D effect thanks to gyroscope, and/or rendering the clock between foreground and background image elements is a real eye-catcher
• Liquid Glass - I love it! While I do like fan-created icons of color logo atop a clear/glass background, the OOTB experience with Glass and semi-transparent panels is nothing less than gorgeous.
  • A small quibble: A couple rounded text boxes need a little more opaqueness to contrast the image under it for legibility and it's mildly irksome, but for all the major areas Apple did Liquid Glass right for 26.0 and the new 17-series. These teensy minor things just need slight tweaking and it sounds like the betas are addressing this with decent compromises with more transparency options and apparently an on/off switch for those who dislike it. Please don't get rid of it, the nuances while tapping are amazing and complement the 17 series' processing power perfectly.
• iTunes Match is positively lovely an experience as my old iTunes library was missing some bands (purchased before 2017 for the most part), but I had backups. These now are reintegrated thanks to iTunes Match and is well worth the entry fee.
• Local music library is always best
• iTunes/Apple Music is a change from Android's "lump any file into a folder" but I'm getting used to it and in most ways it's way-better. Nice to see >256MB/s AAC, too.
  • Minor quibble: Haven't seen any context menu item to get artwork for the handful albums that have no artwork (including my 30 year-old Beatles 4-CD set, oddly), but the vast majority of re-integrated albums the artwork is being downloaded automatically and without issues. Looks so much nicer again. Haven't checked if it's HD-size artwork or not.
• The 2017 color line is bold and gorgeous. I have blue. Silver is a de facto standard that looks professional. Dark blue is professional while bold. Orange, a terrific bold hue, really shows off bold originality as well. A clear or transparent case can contrast and/or complement analogously the phone's color beautifully and creatively. (orange + green = harvest autumn, blue + green having an indescribable but alluring arrangement, et al.)

Quibbles:

• No way to restart phone, just pressing two keys for a shutdown option?
• Scheduler has a means to do an auto-shutdown, but not auto-restart. Would be lovely if an auto-restart feature was added. Not that I've needed to restart in all honesty, but it would be a perfect complement as another shutdown option to get around having to hold the power key...
• Two keys have to be pressed to bring up the shutdown option. Why not just the power button itself?
• Getting to App Library (the rolodex row of text in alphabetical order) requires an extra swipe. I'm used to the icons now and that's a better experience overall (so this quibble is really small), but Niagara launcher in Android just had me used to the rolodex.
• CarPlay prevents wifi internet browsing while in Park, and its handling of the music player prevents scrubbing on the timeline bar (I reverted back to the vehicle's built-in player where the timeline/scubber bar does work.)
• YouTube Music via CarPlay keeps saying "not connected" or timing out while connecting. Permissions for Siri, et al, are fully allowed so I'm at a loss as to why it keeps timing out and erroring out.
• There is no equivalent to Samsung's Adapt Sound for custom volume frequency alteration?
• Keyboard takes a lot to get used to, with no number pad or easy access to most punctuation marks (e.g. tap-hold on letter A to get the at symbol, etc) or emoticons. Using a third-party keyboard alleviates some of this, though the built-in keyboard does return from time to time. But I'm largely used to it now.
• sometimes get weird "no internet" message, which disappears after a couple retries. Connected via wifi and LTE at home, it's perplexing as it's the only device claiming there's an internet issue when there isn't so I'm sure this is a node-level problem. The next iOS update likely will fix this, if this is happening to other people.
• Bought a new transparent case, but am worried that the case might somehow rub off the coloring on the aluminum chassis if I keep swapping between clear and translucent green cases to contrast the phone's color with. (my mindset on this has got to be wrong! )
• No LDAC for iTunes? Not a big thing, the AAC standard beats MP3 by a margin and the higher bitrate is much appreciated. Especially for higher frequency noises like cymbals, but if LDAC is better then I'd hope it'll come down the pike

Again, the pros easily outweigh the quibbles, and I never knew of LDAC until a week ago.

A tangent, please correct me if the following is outdated or inaccurate: I almost splurged but held back on the watch due to minor nitpicks, the Watch Ultra 3 doesn't have BMI (Aura strap needed), direct BP measuring, or antioxidant readings (this being so new only one brand has the sensor). If Ultra 4 has antioxidant readings I'll buy on day one... I do know the 3 has hypertension detection capability, but had thought it took actual BP readings automatically. It does sound like the other health functions are accurate and might pick up the 3 if it does enough health monitoring functionality. (Note: I have no heart issues but the early detection feature could come in handy... or wristy...)