Apple iPhone MFYK4VC/A Cosmic Orange 2048GB

The iPhone 17 Pro Max has a scorching fast A19 Pro chip and a screen that'll melt your eyeballs, but its camera is a letdown and it costs way too much. Early buyers are furious for a reason.

Let's cut through the marketing: the iPhone 17 Pro Max is the most absurdly powerful phone we've tested, and its display is a stunner. The A19 Pro chip leaves every Android rival in the dust, and that 6.9-inch Super Retina XDR panel with 2000 nits is a joy to stare at. But Apple made some weird trade-offs here, and the cameras are shockingly mediocre for a phone that starts at an eye-watering $2,450. Early buyers are roasting it online, and after diving into our benchmarks, we get why.

The A19 Pro is a monster. It's in the 98th percentile for performance, which basically means nothing else in your pocket comes close. Day-to-day use is buttery smooth, and even the most demanding games barely make it warm. What surprised us, though, is that Apple stuck with 8GB of RAM. In 2025, when Android flagships are shipping with 12 or 16GB, that feels tight. It's not a problem now, but we wonder how it'll age, especially with all those AI features eating up memory. Still, the speed is undeniable.

At $2,450, this phone needs to be perfect, and it's not. You're paying a massive premium for that A19 Pro chip and 2TB of storage, but the camera and charging speeds aren't class-leading. Unless you absolutely need the absolute best iOS performance and a comical amount of local storage, this feels like a poor deal. There are much better values in the Android camp, and even some older iPhones make more sense.

The two giants to compare against are the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL. Samsung offers a more versatile camera system, an S Pen, and faster charging, while Google's computational photography mops the floor with this iPhone. Both of them undercut Apple on price, too. If you're not tied to iOS, the S26 Ultra gives you a better all-around package, and the Pixel 10 Pro XL is the camera king. Even the OnePlus 15 and ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro offer faster charging and more RAM for gaming. There's a lot of excellent competition here that makes the iPhone's price hard to justify.

If you care about having the best camera in your pocket or you hate waiting for your phone to charge, this isn't it. Grab a Pixel 10 Pro XL for unmatched photography or a OnePlus 15 for blazing fast charging and lower price. Even the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is a more well-rounded flagship that doesn't ask you to sacrifice this much for the price.

Skip the iPhone 17 Pro Max unless you're a die-hard Apple fan who wants the absolute fastest chip and a massive, gorgeous screen, and you're willing to overlook a mediocre camera and slow charging. The performance is unreal, but the overall package feels unfinished, and the user reviews confirm our doubts. Wait for a software update that fixes the camera processing, or until the price drops significantly.