Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max Preview

This should be a straightforward overview, but I’ve struggled to write it for three days now. I can’t speak for other writers, but this happens to me fairly regularly: I start writing something and then it turns into something else. That’s often wonderful in its own way, but it can also act to derail things. And in this case, it happened twice.

The first was with what was going to be the beginning of this article. That got too long, took on a life of its own, and turned into From the Editor’s Desk: Good Decisions, Less Good Decisions ⭐. After that, I started this over and ended up writing over 1,000 words about finding experts in fields you’re not familiar with, a topic that was triggered by me trying to learn more about iPhone and Pixel photography (and video) features. That one isn’t live yet, but it will get there, as it’s almost complete.

But first, let me get this one out of the way. In the aforementioned/linked article, I discussed my having too much time to think about what I would do for this generation of iPhones and then finally ordering an iPhone 17 Pro Max after having a stronger-than-expected emotional attachment to the iPhone Air. I was happily surprised by the reactions to that, honestly, so thanks for that.

But in the sense that every decision is really a list of weighted micro-decisions, this wasn’t really a battle between logic and emotion. It was just a standard decision in which there were logical and emotional micro-preferences, I guess, and in the end, the iPhone I chose was simply the one that made the most sense for me at this time.

That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Nothing is perfect. And in this case, the decision wasn’t perhaps as clear cut as it had been in past years, which is what makes it somewhat unique. I am often indecisive and unsure, but this was more acute than is usually the case. In any event, I did get the “right” iPhone. But kudos to Apple for making the decision difficult. Or something.

The iPhone lineup this year really is divisive, thanks largely to the Air, but also because of the bold redesign of the Pro models to some degree.

Fairly universally, I see reviewers all coming to the same conclusive: The base iPhone 17 is the “best” of the new iPhones, the one everyone should get. There are good reasons for that: The base iPhone has 256 GB of storage, up from 128 GB, and with no price hike. It has a ProMotion display with a variable refresh rate (VRR), just like the Pros and Air. It has the Center Stage front camera, just like the Pros and Air. Its two rear camera lenses are both high resolution sensors for the first time, matching the Pros (on those lenses) and exceeding the Air.

That’s all true. But here’s what else is true: None of those tech reviewers telling you to buy a base iPhone 17 are using that same phone themselves. So there is at least some element of “do what I say, not what I do” there, and I don’t like that. I might have dealt with the hypocrisy and gotten an iPhone 17 Plus had Apple created that product, since a larger display is one of the micro-decisions I weigh more heavily in a phone purchase. But that’s not a thing, and that pushed the iPhone 17 Pro out of contention as well, leaving the iPhone 17 Pro Max as the only viable option in the end.

And part of the rationale there, a big part, is of course the camera system, the factor I weigh most heavily of all. And in this crucial (to me) area, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is quite interesting.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max (and Pro) is the first iPhone to offer three high resolution rear lenses. It’s also the first to let you shoot full resolution 48 MP shots or 24 MP shots on all the high resolution lenses; the 48 MP ultrawide lens on the iPhone 16 Pro Max was limited to 12 MP shots. The telephoto lens was upgraded to support 8x “optical quality” zoom that’s really just a sensor crop on a 4x optical zoom lens, but still of interest. (And it’s allegedly better at distance than the 5x optical zoom on its predecessor.) And like all the other new iPhones, it has the new Center Stage camera with its square sensor and ability to take landscape or portrait shots when the phone is held in either orientation.

Most of the base specs of the iPhone 17 Pro Max are … whatever. It has the latest A-series processor, of course. The most RAM. The speedy internal storage. And so on. But some core specifications do matter to me. The Pro Max (and Pro) has a USB 3 Type-C port, not the poky USB-C nonsense in the Air and non-Pro models. Faster wired and wireless charging, huge since I’m all-in on MagSafe/Qi 2 now. And yes, that larger display, now with 50 percent more brightness (3000 nits) than its predecessor, though it is still short of the 3300 nits provided by the Pixel 10 Pros.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max is a big, big boy, weighing in at 8.22 ounces, compared to 7.99 ounces for its predecessor and 8.18 ounces for the Pixel 10 Pro XL. The good news? The already stellar battery life is better this year too.

I really like the new iPhone 17 Pro/Pro Max design with its dual-tone rear and Pixel-like camera “plateau,” as Apple calls it. I’m less excited by the colors, a garish orange, a dark blue, and a very boring gray, and we’ve all heard the stories about the paint peeling and chipping off: These phones are anodized aluminum, which is a fancy way of saying painted aluminum.

Given this, I should have just gotten the boring gray color. But I couldn’t stand to do that, so I got the Pro Max in Deep Blue instead. Oddly, this is the one color that almost hides the two-tone rear of the device, and I like that effect. But I’m getting a case, too, so no matter. It got this with 256 GB of storage, the base amount, which costs $1199, as was the case a year ago, but still a heady sum. Apple gave me $670 on trade for the iPhone 16 Pro Max, down $30 from the launch period value. (Which come to think of it, may have played a role in me not waiting to order the phone until we got back to the U.S.) So the total cost before taxes is about $530.

I almost ordered a TechWoven case, but I need to see that in person first, so I ordered a Deep Blue Bare Naked case from Bare Cases instead. We’ll see how that goes, but it’s shipping now and will arrive before we get back to PA.

So yeah. Not sure why it took so long for me to cough this one out, but this is what I’m doing.

More soon. Including that bit about seeking out expertise.