Apple iPhone 18 Pro Max vs. iPhone 17 Pro Max | Infinium-tech

The new iPhone hit the shelves and the first order of business is to pit it against its predecessor. The Apple iPhone 18 Pro Max brings screen, performance, camera and battery improvements over the previous generation and yet the Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max gets you a lot of the same at a cheaper price.

So how much better is the Apple iPhone 18 Pro Max? Let’s look into it.

Table of Contents:

For starters, you can compare the complete specs sheets or directly continue with our editor’s assessment in the following text.

Size comparison

The two iPhones share the same design and build and if it weren’t for the different color options, it would have been almost impossible to tell them apart.

Like its predecessor, the iPhone 18 Pro Max features an aluminum unibody with a prominent camera bump, shielded by 2nd-gen Ceramic Shield on the front and 1st-gen Ceramic Shield over the rear charging coil.

The phones are IP68-rated for dust and water resistance, and they are advertised as capable of surviving for 30mins in 6m-deep water.

While the two iPhones are of the same size, too, the iPhone 18 Pro Max is 15 grams heavier, owing to its larger battery and bigger heatsink.

Display comparison

The iPhone 18 Pro Max and iPhone 17 Pro Max share the same 6.9-inch LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED panel with 1320 x 2868 pixels and 120Hz refresh rate (ProMotion). The panel is advertised to reach identical brightness on both devices – 1,000 nits of typical and 3,000 nits of peak brightness.

There is one difference, though, and that’s the Dynamic Island. It still blends two physical cutouts into a single pill-shaped one, but that pill has shrunk by 35% on the iPhone 18 Pro Max.

The cutout is smaller because Apple moved the IR camera to the left of the island directly beneath the screen. There are fewer subpixels overlying the IR camera but that’s visible only under specific extreme angles, thankfully.

Our display test revealed that both screens show similar brightness properties – about 800 nits of maximum manual and about 2,800-3,000 nits of peak brightness.

If you prefer a smaller cutout, the iPhone 18 Pro Max will feel like an upgrade – though for most people, the two screens will be as good as identical.

Battery life

The iPhone 18 Pro Max is powered by a 5,391mAh (21.06Wh) battery in the nano-SIM model, which is about 500mAh more than the cell in the SIM-enabled iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Together with the new chip and the larger battery, the iPhone 18 Pro Max achieved an impressive Active Use Rating of 19:20h, up from 17:58h on the iPhone 17 Pro Max. The most notable improvements are in calls and web browsing.

Charging speed

Apple advertises the new iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max as capable of faster wired charging than the previous model and it is recommended to use Apple’s 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max. The iPhone 18 Pro Max box states a maximum charging power rating of 54W, up from 42W for the 17 Pro Max.

Our testing backs that up, with the new model consistently drawing 53W for the first 10 minutes of the charging process. And even with the larger battery capacity, the 18 Pro Max does recharge faster, reaching 50% in just 15 minutes (vs 38% for the 17 Pro Max) and 81% in 30 minutes (vs 65% for the 17 Pro Max).

Both the iPhone 18 Pro Max and 17 Pro Max support fast wireless charging up to 25W via MagSafe when using a compatible Qi2 charger and a 35W+ power adapter. And we can confirm they both reach about 50% of charge in half an hour with Apple’s MagSafe charger.

Speaker test

Both iPhones feature hybrid setups of stereo speakers with one dedicated bottom-firing speaker and the earpiece pulling a double duty.

The iPhone 18 Pro Max scored ‘Very Good’ for loudness compared to ‘Good’ for the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Its audio output is slightly richer, but whether you can hear the difference depends on the track.

Performance

The Apple iPhone 18 Pro Max employs the latest Apple A20 Pro chip, built on a 2nm process. The A20 Pro features 6-core CPU (2x Super Cores clocked at 4.93GHz and 4x Efficiency Cores clocked at 2.64GHz), a powerful 7-core GPU, doubled Neural Engine cores (now 32), and a 50% increase in memory bandwidth thanks to a new memory architecture with a 96-bit memory bus. The cooling system has been improved with a vapor chamber that offers three times the surface area of the one cooling the A19 Pro inside the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Speaking of the iPhone 17 Pro Max, it runs on the Apple A19 Pro, a 3nm chip. It features a 6-core CPU (2x Performance Cores clocked at 4.26GHz and 4x Efficiency Cores ticking at 2.60GHz) alongside a 6-core Apple GPU. Its Neural Engine has 16 cores, its memory bus is 64-bit, and its vapor chamber is significantly smaller than the one on the A20 Pro.

Benchmark performance

As expected, the Apple A20 Pro tops our benchmark charts. It delivers roughly 30% higher CPU scores and a 30%+ GPU boost over the A19 Pro, with the iPhone 18 Pro Max posting an AnTuTu score nearly 48% higher than the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

While the iPhone 18 Pro Max takes the performance crown, the iPhone 17 Pro Max remains a powerhouse, proving the A19 Pro still has plenty of headroom a year later.

Camera comparison

Apple introduced a couple of reasonably significant hardware changes last year (new telephoto and new selfie camera), so the 18 Pros keep the upgrades to a minimum – the main camera gets a variable aperture lens which is also brighter at the wide open end compared to the one on the 17 Pros. The range is f/1.48 to f/4.0, with two inbetween settings (f/1.8 and f/2.8). The 17 Pros’ aperture is fixed at f/1.78.

Teardowns revealed there’s a new sensor model being used on the main camera, but it still has the same basic specs – 1/1.28″ optical format and 48MP resolution. The camera uses sensor-shift image stabilization, as before.

The telephoto camera remains the same as last year, with its 100mm equivalent lens providing 4x optical zoom, but the lack of close focusing remains a pain point. The ultrawide is around 13mm equivalent – again, unchanged. All these sensors have a 1/2.55″ optical format and a 48MP nominal resolution.

As last year, all three rear cameras offer 24MP shooting capability, and that’s the default setting too – you get that at 0.5x, 1x, and 4x, while the 2x and 8x zoom levels stick to 12MP. At the native zoom levels, you also get a 48MP option.

The selfie camera is unchanged too, its octagonal 18MP sensor letting you shoot in both portrait and landscape orientation regardless of how the phone itself is held.

A new development this year that just might be the most important one and the one actually significant difference between the 18 Pros and the 17 Pros is the manual mode in disguise. You get the option to set shutter speed and white balance, in addition to the main camera’s aperture, though manual ISO setting is still missing. It’s not a dedicated mode and you kind of have to set each parameter separately from its own sub-menu from the contextual settings pane, but it’s still something, and it’s something that the 17 Pros don’t have.

Image quality

For the purposes of this comparison, we’ve used samples taken on an iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro. Since both Pro Max models feature the exact same camera hardware as the respective Pros, the observations are equally applicable to both sizes. The samples were taken side by side with the two phones, either exactly at the same time, or within moments from each other.

Daylight

Main camera photos at 1x from the two phones are more similar than they are different, unsurprisingly. That said, the 18 Pro has a slight tendency for warmer colors in general, showing in pavements and greenery (with a particularly pronounced example in the Vespa scene, though this is more of an outlier). We’re also liking the new generation’s detail rendition better – it’s finer and better defined, and consistently so. Between the new lens, the new processor, and possibly the new sensor, there just might be enough improvements to add up to ever so slightly better shots.

Daylight comparison, main camera (1x): iPhone 18 Pro • iPhone 17 Pro

Now, we’re not seeing much of a use case for manually choosing the wide open f/1.48 aperture on the iPhone 18 Pro in broad daylight for the vast majority of scenes. You do stand to gain some extra background blur, yes, which can be useful when trying to isolate nearby subjects. Then again, the new model’s f/1.8 results already seem to have softer bokeh than the old model’s f/1.78 photos and the move from there to f/1.48 is a little less noticeable.

Daylight comparison, main camera (1x): iPhone 18 Pro, f/1.8 • iPhone 18 Pro, f/1.48 • iPhone 17 Pro, f/1.78

At 2x, the new generation models are also a little sharper, though it’s somehow not as universal – sometimes the images look just about the same between the two.

Daylight comparison, main camera (2x): iPhone 18 Pro • iPhone 17 Pro

At 4x zoom, there’s a bit of that warmer color rendition going on as well. We wouldn’t say there’s much of a sharpness or detail difference, though the old models’ noise performance is a bit worse in dimmer indoor scenes, so you can also try and count that as a generational improvement – that’s the magnitude of improvements you can hope for at this point.

Daylight comparison, telephoto camera (4x): iPhone 18 Pro • iPhone 17 Pro

At 8x, it’s a bit more of the same.

Daylight comparison, telephoto camera (8x): iPhone 18 Pro • iPhone 17 Pro

Comparing photos from the ultrawides, the new generation’s warmer color rendition persists. And that’s about all the difference we can spot – there’s not much to split the two on a pixel level, not in terms of detail, and not in terms of noise performance either.

Daylight comparison, ultrawide camera (0.5x): iPhone 18 Pro • iPhone 17 Pro

Low light

In the dark, the iPhone 18 Pro’s main camera will essentially exclusively shoot at f/1.48 when left in full auto, which is understandable. That said, it’s not substantially better at f/1.48 than it is at f/1.8 – in fact, we can’t say we’re certain that it is better at all. We weren’t expecting miracles and huge differences, of course, but we were kind of hoping the extra light would be beneficial more than it’s proving to be.

With that in mind, comparing against the previous generation is also not showing a whole lot of improvement, if there is any at all.

Low-light comparison, main camera (1x): iPhone 18 Pro • iPhone 17 Pro

Here’s a couple of scenes with the iPhone 18 Pro at both f/1.48 and f/1.8, next to the iPhone 17 Pro’s respective f/1.78 shot – for more immediate comparison.

Low-light comparison, main camera (1x): iPhone 18 Pro, f/1.48 • iPhone 18 Pro, f/1.8 • iPhone 17 Pro, f/1.78

We’re then faced with the slightly uncomfortable realization that at 2x zoom the previous generation is actually that little bit sharper – and it’s not just occasionally, but every time, it seems. It’s anything but a dramatic difference, but the advantage had to be in favor of the new model, and it’s not.

Low-light comparison, main camera (2x): iPhone 18 Pro • iPhone 17 Pro

The 4x images from both phones are pretty grainy and neither camera’s results are particularly sharp either. There’s apparently slightly different thresholds for the engagement of Night mode – the third scene did trigger it on the 18 Pro and not on the 17 Pro – and the fact that the photo looks better from the iPhone 18 Pro makes that an improvement, probably.

Low-light comparison, telephoto camera (4x): iPhone 18 Pro • iPhone 17 Pro

Now, is the iPhone 17 Pro a little grainier and noisier at 8x than the iPhone 18 Pro? Yes. But is the iPhone 17 Pro a little better at capturing what looks like detail than the iPhone 18 Pro is? Well, maybe yes too.

Low-light comparison, telephoto camera (8x): iPhone 18 Pro • iPhone 17 Pro

The two ultrawides capture more or less the same photos and they’re not too exciting – they’re pretty soft and noisy, not to mention dim and gloomy.

Low-light comparison, ultrawide camera (0.5x): iPhone 18 Pro • iPhone 17 Pro

Selfies

There are no changes to the selfie camera hardware and the photos you’d be getting from both phones are essentially the same.

Selfies comparison: iPhone 18 Pro • iPhone 17 Pro

Video quality

Below we have a few framegrabs from the videos taken by the two phones at each focal length so it’s easier to compare to one another.

Not a lot has changed with the iPhone Pro’s video recording capabilities this year. So, then, both phones here can record video up to 4K at 60, 30, or 24fps with all of their cameras (the three rear ones and the front-facing one) and the primary cameras on the back can also do 4K120 at both 1x and 2x zoom.

You get Dolby Vision recording capability in all modes too, plus ProRes and Apple Log 2 options, though you will need to record to external storage for some of the higher fps modes to be able to work.

One slight change on the 18 Pro is that Cinematic mode now maxes at 4K60, up from the 4K30 on the 17 Pro. The other advantage of the new model is that the manual controls (shutter speed, white balance, aperture) are available in video too – you don’t get those on the 17 Pro.

When it comes to the end results, we’d struggle to spot a meaningful difference between the footage of the two phones, much less a pattern. Perhaps the one instance where the clips don’t look the same is at 2x in daylight, where the iPhone 18 Pro has a small advantage in sharpness – the rest of the clips are as good as identical.

Daylight video screengrabs, iPhone 18 Pro: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 4x • 8x

Daylight video screengrabs, iPhone 17 Pro: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 4x • 8x

That doesn’t appear to translate into low-light videos – at night, the iPhone 18 Pro loses its 2x advantage. The nighttime videos are a toss-up – you can hardly tell the videos have been captured by different phones.

Low-light video screengrabs, iPhone 18 Pro: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 4x • 8x

Low-light video screengrabs, iPhone 17 Pro: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 4x • 8x

Verdict

The iPhone 18 Pro Max delivers notable upgrades: a smaller cutout, faster hardware with improved thermal management, a larger battery with faster charging, and a variable-aperture main camera. It is undoubtedly the cream of the crop and worth owning.

However, if you already have an iPhone 17 Pro Max – or are upgrading from a 15 Pro Max or older – the 17 Pro Max remains a fantastic choice. It offers many of the same qualities at a more attractive price point.

Bottom line: the iPhone 18 Pro Max is superior, but keeping or buying the 17 Pro Max is still a smart move.

Get the Apple iPhone 18 Pro Max for:

• The smaller Dynamic Island.
• The longer battery life.
• Faster wired charging.
• Louder speakers.
• Faster hardware.
• Variable aperture on the main camera (for niche/isolated use cases).

Get the Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max for:

• Cheaper price, yet with….
• …a similarly great screen…
• …and battery life
• The same photo and video quality.
• The same design and build.
• A19 Pro chip is still a powerhouse.