Apple’s Annual Promise and What’s Different This Year
So, every year Apple comes out and announces their brand new iPhone, and they say it’s the best iPhone they’ve ever made. And of course, that should be the case year-over-year, but this is the first time in a long time that the iPhone 17 Pro Max is actually a year-over-year substantial upgrade because there are three major things that they improved on compared to the 16 Pro Max, which I thought were very important to make sure that they got right, and they absolutely did. Let’s talk about my iPhone 17 Pro Max one week later. Let’s get into it. But now before we continue, if you do enjoy videos like this one where we keep you updated on all things Apple, do consider subscribing to the channel and possibly becoming a channel member to get the awesome wallpapers that are in here.
Design: A Fresh Look with Real Practicality
But now, let’s talk about the first thing, which is design. So, this is the first year in a while that Apple has changed up the overall look and design of the new iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. They brought out this brand new aluminum unibody design, which again, they went from titanium last year over to aluminum for some better heat dissipation, which we’ll touch on in the performance section. But again, overall, the new build and build material is actually a net positive in my opinion. Yes, the phone feels a little heavier compared to the 16 Pro Max, which I do have here, but it actually feels smaller in the hand because of the way that they designed the new aluminum build.
The 16 Pro Max and even the predecessor before that, the 15 Pro Max and the 14 Pro Max, they every year got a little less squared off. The 14 Pro Max was by far the most kind of 90° angle when it came to going from the display over to the sides. And every year they got it a little bit more curvy where this year they actually curved the edges ever so slightly to make it feel even smaller in the hand. So while the display size and the actual footprint of the iPhone is the same as last year, overall it feels smaller because it was ergonomically built to make sure that it fits in the hand even nicer.
As somebody who has medium-sized hands, I’m able to reach over one-handed and be able to touch the top right and left corners of this phone much easier than I did with the last year’s 16 Pro Max, which I think is a big design upgrade. And then the camera plateau, of course, on the rear, that’s where you’re going to see the difference compared to the 16 Pro Max. But the camera plateau to me has served an even better ergonomic function, which is a little rest for my finger to be put on there. So I can hold my phone one-handed much easier. Whereas with last year’s phone, they didn’t really have that.
The phone was a little bit slippery. Whenever I had to reach over to the top right and left hand corners, I had to like shimmy my phone up and down. Whereas this year, like I said, with that camera plateau, it has this kind of like passive purpose, which is again to give you a little bit of an easier hold when you are holding this phone because for a lot of people, the 17 Pro Max, it is a large phone with a 6.9-inch display. So, I am absolutely in love with this new unibody design. The curvature makes it a lot easier to hold in the hand. The camera plateau adds a little bit more confidence when you are using this, especially when you are using it caseless.
And because that camera plateau does rise up a little bit, the actual individual camera lenses don’t protrude or at least they don’t seem like they protrude as much as they did on the 16 Pro Max, which does alleviate a little bit of that table rock when you are using it in kind of flatline mode. Now, there still is a little bit of a rock, but it is much less than the old 16 Pro Max and all the other old phones that had the normal traditional triple camera array.
Now, from an overall sturdiness perspective, I actually haven’t dropped my phone directly on concrete without a case or anything like that. I’ll leave that to the JerryRig Everythings of the world, but technically titanium is a little bit stronger, so maybe the aluminum might dent a little bit easier, but that remains yet to be seen in my overall testing. But it is very confidence-inducing when you are holding it one-handed compared to last year’s model. So, the design for me is a huge upgrade that they’ve definitely improved on with last year’s model.
Performance: A True Leap Forward
So, now I got to talk about performance and especially RAM management when it comes to the iPhone because that was, in my opinion, the most impressive part. Traditionally, as we’ve gotten kind of more mature in the iPhone lineup, the year-over-year performance update is 10 to 20% overall. They usually say 10% increase in CPU and then 15 to 20% increase in GPU. But this year, when Apple announced their new 17 Pro Max, they said that it received a 40% performance boost overall.
Now, a lot of that has to do with the fact that there is more RAM. We went from 8 gigs of RAM to supposedly 12 gigs of RAM, although Apple isn’t fully disclosing how much RAM they added to the 17 Pro Max. But then also the way that the A19 Pro chip is built has made it a lot easier for RAM management and also for heat dissipation and overall just optimizing the efficiency of the 17 Pro Max.
I have been extremely impressed with my day-to-day use on situations where my 16 Pro Max would heat up just by doing normal traditional things or maybe I’m playing a game that’s a little bit more task-intensive or maybe I am recording 4K video for an extended period of time. My 16 Pro Max would get hot to the touch pretty frequently and it would happen on a day-to-day basis. And if I was outside in the sunlight, my screen would dim within 2 to 3 minutes of being used because again, Apple with the 16 Pro Max was throttling things down and it got a little too overly hot, especially in the summertime.
Whereas, when I would take out the 17 Pro Max on a beautiful 85° day, it handled everything perfectly. The screen never dimmed down. So, it’s able to handle everything much better. And that to me is a huge improvement because I would always worry about the battery life and the display dimming and the phone overheating from time to time.
And especially if I was like charging the phone, especially fast charging, my 16 Pro Max would overheat super quickly and it would be relatively annoying. So, I do think that the A19 Pro has a lot to do with that. Of course, the unibody design, the new aluminum build has a lot to do with that. Also, the new vapor chamber that’s added inside the 17 Pro and Pro Max adds a lot to the cooling, the dissipation of all that heat that’s happening.
So, the phone has not gotten hot to the touch. Even when I am fast charging it, whether it is wired in or via MagSafe C 2.2, it has not gotten hot to the touch and performance hasn’t throttled down whatsoever, which is great to see.
And another big marker that I’ve used from a use case and day-to-day perspective is RAM management and multitasking. Right? Multitasking on the 16 Pro Max was relatively annoying as well because I would go into the 16 Pro Max, I would open up YouTube, then I need to open up maybe a Gmail or open up maybe two or three apps after that. I would go back to the YouTube app and the whole YouTube app would refresh and I would lose whatever I was watching on that application.
Whereas with the 17 Pro Max, so far it’s been fantastic, right? I’ll open up a bunch of different applications or maybe even a whole day has gone by and I’ll go back to the YouTube application and I’m right back exactly where I was on that YouTube video without the app needing to refresh.
That goes to show you just how much better the RAM management and the A19 Pro is at making sure that things are running smoothly in the background without overheating and without overworking the system and being able to then give you exactly what you need at a moment’s notice.
So, the performance upgrades have been substantial. And from a use case scenario, I’m feeling the difference. It’s one thing to kind of just show you a graph and let you know like, hey, 40% better performance on the 17 Pro Max, but then on day-to-day use, you don’t really kind of feel it. I felt it immediately and over my weeklong use of the 17 Pro Max, I felt it in multiple situations, whether it is gaming, music playback, video playback, recording in 4K, or just having a bunch of different things running at the same time.
Battery Life and Charging: The New King Returns
And then the third thing Apple really improved on that really gives you a tangible feel of improvement has to be battery life and battery charging and charging speeds overall. So one thing to note here is that the iPhone 17, 17 Pro, and 17 Pro Max do support the new Chi 2.2 wireless charging, which gives you those new 25 watts of wireless charging speeds, but they also support 36 watts of wired charging, meaning that you can charge your iPhone 17 Pro Max to 50% in just 20 minutes.
And they do this in a cooled way. Like you don’t feel like your phone is overheating. You don’t feel like it’s about to explode because you’re charging it with a 100 watt brick that you would charge your MacBook with or your iPad with.
So the overall battery usage and battery life has been fantastic on the 17 Pro Max. And it’s kind of reminding me of the days of the 13 Pro Max. If you guys remember, the iPhone 13 Pro Max was so well optimized. The battery life was fantastic and everything worked as intended where you easily got a day and a half to maybe even 2 days of battery life.
With the 17 Pro Max with my intense usage, right, I use this thing and I really really push it on a daily basis from personal use to business use to work use to video to photo to gaming to again content consumption, communication. I throw everything that I can at this iPhone 17 Pro Max and I’m ending the day with about 28 to 25% battery life.
And that’s, you know, taking it off the charger at 7 a.m. and putting it on the charger at 10:00 p.m. From what I’ve seen here, I’m getting anywhere from 7 to 10 hours of screen on time, which again is fantastic.
As you can see, on a day like yesterday, I got about 90% of the way through the battery in about 7 hours of screen on time. So again, your mileage may vary on how you use your iPhone. But if you’re just using it for iMessage, for some Twitter scrolling, for some Instagram scrolling, to record the occasional video or photo, you’re easily going to get 10 hours of battery life out of this thing, especially in the very beginning when the battery is brand new.
Of course, that’ll probably deteriorate a little bit over time, but I’m hoping Apple will be able to optimize that. But this, in my opinion, is the brand new battery life king when it comes to iPhones, and we’re going back to rivaling that 13 Pro Max.
Cameras, Haptics, and Sound: The Finishing Touches
Because I’ll be honest, yes, I was running the beta software towards the tail end of the 16 Pro Max’s usage, but the battery life on my 16 Pro Max was horrendous. I would need to charge it around 6:00 p.m. every single day to get me to the end of the day, and even then, I would still end the day at around 10 p.m. with, you know, 5% battery life really pushing it towards the end.
And also, one thing that the 16 Pro Max was not able to handle well was low power mode. Whenever I went into low power mode on the 16 Pro Max, you know, the frames would drop tremendously. The phone would kind of get a little bit choppy. It would not work as well as I wanted to.
Low power mode really extends the battery life and it doesn’t feel like it’s really deterring the possibilities of what the iPhone 17 Pro Max can do. So, battery life has been fantastic and the new fast charging of Chi 2.2 as well as the 36 watt fast charging have been amazing.
Now, I did want to shout out a couple other miscellaneous things that kind of deserve an honorable mention because those first three are things that everybody’s going to notice. The use cases are going to kind of speak for themselves and people are going to feel like this is a brand new iPhone because you’re getting the performance and the battery life out of it.
But with the 17 Pro Max, again, it’s the best that they’ve ever put together. So, the camera system is fantastic. On the rear, you now have all 48 megapixel shooters with a new 4x telephoto. And then Apple is touting it as an 8x telephoto as well as an optical one because it is cropping into the middle 12 megapixels.
And it’s a great camera system. It’s the best that Apple’s ever made. But again, iPhones have always been fantastic at video and photos. So, this is no exception. But the 8x telephoto is a great upgrade to that camera, especially if you are somebody that wants to zoom in and especially after using something like the iPhone Air for a little while, you really start to miss that triple camera array.
The new front-facing selfie camera is fantastic, too, with the new ultrawide and being able to record in landscape mode when you are holding it in portrait mode, which is a really cool little touch, but that goes down to the entire lineup of all iPhone 17s, including the iPhone Air.
And then another great thing has been the haptics as well as the stereo sound, right? The speakers on the 17 Pro Max, I guess because it is a larger device, they’re great. They’re very loud. They’re punchy. They’re bassy. Like I played it out loud. It rivals some like cheaper Bluetooth speakers.
I think they’re great speakers and the haptics second to none. The haptics on the iPhone 17 Pro Max, especially coming from the iPhone Air, you really start to tell the difference what a larger kind of haptic engine will do for you and how it feels.
Should You Upgrade? The Final Verdict
So, those are just some things that I did want to bring up because they’re still great. They’re still fantastic. But, I wanted to show you guys what I wanted improved from the 16 Pro Max over to the 17 Pro Max and see if it’s worth that year-over-year upgrade because for some people it might be.
So, ultimately, who should upgrade to the 17 Pro Max? It really just depends on how you use it. In my opinion, if you do have an iPhone 14 or older, you will see substantial upgrades to the 17 Pro Max. And then if you do have one of the newer iPhones like the 15 Pro Max or the 16 Pro Max, they are built a little bit different and maybe if you are dealing with overheating issues or poor battery life and things like that, it could be worth upgrading depending on how you’re going to use your phone.
But if you’re okay just kind of slapping your phone on a charger multiple times a day, then the actual experience isn’t going to be that different, especially when it comes to iOS 26 and Lucid Glass, especially with Apple Intelligence, which is still something that Apple really needs to work on in my opinion.
But in a silo, the 17 Pro Max is Apple’s best phone, and it should be, and it’s the first time we’ve seen a year-over-year upgrade that maybe makes me want to recommend it to people that are in this kind of like pro-level moniker, and that they need the latest and greatest from Apple.
It is a worthy upgrade. Like from the 15 Pro Max to the 16 Pro Max, I told people to kind of stray away and save your money. But 16 Pro Max to 17 Pro Max—it feels like a two or three year upgrade in my opinion, especially with the new design and performance changes.
But that’ll do it for this video everybody. If you did make it to the end, leave a little dolphin and leave a comment down below what you think. Did you pick up a new 17 Pro Max? Which color did you go with? Did you opt in for the 17 Pro for the smaller version? Because they are identical besides the actual size of the battery and display. Everything else is the same.
But always curious to know if you want to watch more videos like this one, like what the iPhone Air was like, definitely check out one of these videos right here. But until next time, I’m Fernando. Peace, everyone.
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