Apple·phone
iPhone 17 Pro Max
Based on 32 credible posts from Hacker News, YouTube & Bluesky. 42 filtered out as bot-like or off-topic.
Medium confidenceA solid sample; expect small shifts as more owners post. How we score
Scored September 27, 2026
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Owner reviews
Overall owner mood
Owners are split: 50% of 32 reviews are positive, 25% negative, and the rest mixed or neutral. Praise centers on battery & charging and camera. The most common complaint is software & ai (3 owners). Owners with 6+ months of use are more positive (83%), which suggests it holds up well.
What owners like
Battery & charging praised by 7 owners
“The battery life is outstanding I get 7 hours of screen time and use 50 percent of the battery watching TikTok, Youtube, using all social medias and this might be peak iPhone because the changes for the 18 Pro Max are minimal.”
Camera praised by 7 owners
“Very impressed with the camera capabilities of the the product.”
Price & value praised by 4 owners
“My experience for iPhones is iPhone 6+ (which was amazing), then I've been at Android world (Sxx series), and now I have the product, and truly wonder what is the value proposition here.”
Display praised by 3 owners
“The battery life is outstanding I get 7 hours of screen time and use 50 percent of the battery watching TikTok, Youtube, using all social medias and this might be peak iPhone because the changes for the 18 Pro Max are minimal.”
What owners complain about
Software & AI raised by 3 owners
“I’ve never had such buggy behavior for simple interactions.”
Display raised by 2 owners
“And there is no "home" button anymore, that resets my virtual position to something safe/familiar, now I'm trying to swipe up/down/left/right, and there is always some new screen layout.”
Camera raised by 2 owners
“Here's what chatgpt.com looks like on an the product with the page zoom turned up: It's such an absolutely pathetic use of the viewport space.”
Controls & input raised by 2 owners
“And there is no "home" button anymore, that resets my virtual position to something safe/familiar, now I'm trying to swipe up/down/left/right, and there is always some new screen layout.”
What owners talk about
- Camera7 praise · 2 complain
- Battery & charging7 praise · 1 complain
- Display3 praise · 2 complain
- Price & value4 praise · 0 complain
- Software & AI0 praise · 3 complain
- Controls & input0 praise · 2 complain
Built from the reviews themselves — every quote links to the owner who wrote it.
Full text of every credible post we scored. Bot-like and off-topic comments are hidden.
Team orange baby!!! Got my 17 pro max as an earlier birthday gift back in December and I love it!!
Traded my 15 pro for a 17 pro max December last year. Really been enjoying it, not a heavy user, more for photography / video and editing in lightroom / DaVinci Resolve on my ipad afterward. So far battery is still 100% with 65 cycle!
I am using 17 pro max silver i purchased on first sale. its still ios 26.0.1 cycles 284 Battery health 95% . i am very satisfied i am not gonna upgrade my smooth iphone ios.
[...] Always kept in a case + screen saver. 100% Battery Life w/ 187 cycles. [...]
Well done Aaron Mark here Australia really enjoyed this video of your phone I have 17 pro max blue for about 6 months I really love it thank you Aaron 😊
[...] They didn’t have any, so I got a 17 Pro Max. [...]
Here’s my one year ownership review. Great phone, great battery life, great camera, iOS 26 stability has been good, but not great. [...] I can’t speak to the durability, considering I’ve had my phone in a case since day one however when I took the phone out of the case to clean it, I noticed a chip on my plateau which is weird considering it’s never been dropped out of a case. 92% battery health after a full year. I will be grabbing a foldable this year as long as the price is within reason. [...]
[...] Having more screen real estate and a larger battery is so much more beneficial than being able to reach everything with one hand, and then the popsocket pretty much solves the one hand issue. I can reach the top of my screen with my iPhone 17 Pro Max because my phone has a PopSocket on the back, and my fingers are below average short.
My experience with the new Siri is objectively worse. I am on an Iphone 17 Pro Max and all searches are very slow, accessing utilities has slowed down quite a bit, lagginess when settings timers. [...] I've been using the OS since the RC. [...]
I have recently upgraded to an iPhone 17 Pro Max from iPhone X (yes, I buy once a decade or so), and I also take photos with a A7-III. The latest iPhone takes shockingly good photos. It's not a full frame mirrorless by any stretch, but it's really in another league when it comes to mobile photography.
I'm on 26.4 on a brand new 17 Pro Max, recently upgraded from a 13 Pro Max, and I have noticed absolutely no difference in the keyboard. It's still awful.
Update on Feb. [...] 1st and I have an iPhone 17 Pro Max to test with and... [...]
"Just get a bigger screen" is such a lame excuse, and it doesn't even work. Here's what chatgpt.com looks like on an iPhone 17 Pro Max with the page zoom turned up: It's such an absolutely pathetic use of the viewport space. And this is exactly that kind of thing that giving pages separate text scaling awareness instead of only page zoom will be able to improve. [...] Insisting that blind people should accept wasting left and right thirds of their screen space (seriously, look at the size of the chat bubble where you can see a tiny slice of it peeking through) on zooming in the white space and just buy bigger devices that don't even exist to accommodate this, all because uniformly blowing up all page elements is easier for developers is… I'll be polite and say it's not something I agree with.
[...] My experience for iPhones is iPhone 6+ (which was amazing), then I've been at Android world (Sxx series), and now I have iPhone 17 Pro Max, and truly wonder what is the value proposition here. Feels really buggy, UI tries to be Jolla-like gesture-based, but fails to do that, default style reminds that it is made by/for a kindergardener. And there is no "home" button anymore, that resets my virtual position to something safe/familiar, now I'm trying to swipe up/down/left/right, and there is always some new screen layout. On the macOS side, it gets more locked and buggy and inconsistent with every release. [...]
iPhone 17 Pro Max (iOS 26.0.1) I have reproduced the pops everywhere I am able to manually trigger notes. I was fiddling with the guitar tones, then opened from the background when the audio broke. I tried repeating that, but no repro.
The design is not my cup of tea but whatever, my issues are the bugs. [...] I’ve never had such buggy behavior for simple interactions. And lest anyone blame my hardware, it’s a 17 Pro Max.
17 Pro Max is my first Pro iPhone and my experience has been fantastic. Amazing battery life. Amazing camera system. [...] I would definitely recommend getting one NOW and save money!
Love my 17 pro max 512gb cosmic orange! 100% battery health! [...]
My iPhone 17 pro max has started heating up on watching YouTube videos and that too without on charging. [...] This is also happening on my iPad M5. [...]
Honestly I think the 17 Pro Max I have is one of the best phones I have ever used. [...] The battery life is outstanding I get 7 hours of screen time and use 50 percent of the battery watching TikTok, Youtube, using all social medias and this might be peak iPhone because the changes for the 18 Pro Max are minimal. I would recommend the 17 Pro Max any day and honestly I change my phones yearly but this one I am not because of how the device has performed.
iPhone 17 Pro Max. I wanted the big screen since I find myself using my phone for more and more stuff, including watching videos and wanted the bigger screen. Although unless you've got big bappy paws like me the Max is probably going to be too big to reach the whole screen with one hand.
Now my brand new (less than 2 weeks old from the Verizon store in East Hampton) iPhone 17 Pro Max, has disappeared from the list of my devices in Apple’s find my phone app. I was logged into my Apple account and was able to see a location last Friday, when I returned to pick it up in Montauk
The best camera is the one in your pocket. [...] See something I like, I take my phone out, Snap. All shot with @halideapp.bsky.social on iPhone 17 Pro Max. [...]
Yeahhh thats what my phone did and I heard alot of people had problems with that phone smh. My iphone 17 pro max been acting good so far.
Very impressed with the camera capabilities of the iPhone 17 Pro Max. I took this today with noting but my phone. [...]
Oh the hoops I had to jump through to get UTM with JIT enabled on my 17 Pro Max with iOS 26…
I had an Air with the same camera system as the 17e, I believe. Coming from a 15 Pro Max, it was perfectly serviceable if you were happy with the limited zoom options and lack of wide angle shots. I never realized how much I used those two features, so, regrettably had to go back to the chunky 17 Pro Max. [...]
[...] I have an iPhone 17 Pro Max and use it to capture HEIF 48 and ProRAW images for Lightroom. There’s no doubt of the extraordinary capabilities of modern phone cameras. And there are camera applications that give you a sense of the sensor data captured, which only further illustrates the dazzling wizardly between sensor capture vs the image seen by laypeople. That said, there is literally no comparison between the iPhone camera and the RAW photos captured on a modern full-frame mirrorless camera like my Nikon Z6III or Z9. [...] The large sensor size and lenses (that can make a Mac Studio seem cheap by comparison) serve a purpose. Try capturing even a remotely similar image on an iPhone in low light, and especially RAW, and you’ll be sitting there waiting seconds or more for a single image. Professional lenses can easily contain 25 individual lens elements that move in conjunction as groups for autofocus, zoom, motion stabilization, etc. [...] You can handhold a low-light shot at 1/15s to capture a waterfall with motion blur and continue shooting, with the camera optimizing the stabilization around the focus point—that’s the sensor and lens working in conjunction for real-time stabilization for standard shots, or “sports mode” for rapidly panning horizontally or vertically.
Upgraded from the 14 pro max to the 17 pro max, barely feel the upgrade honestly. I miss the days when the new version of an iPhone felt like getting some crazy tech from the future. I still remember when I got the first one and knew everyone would have one one day.
I've just recently switched from a 15 Pro Max - not as if I had to - and there something interesting I have experienced: if you hold the phone horizontally to take a photo or a video, unless you're pinching the corners of the phone, your middle finger would rest against the LiDAR Scanner due to the placement of the plateau. [...]
I haven't noticed the battery life being bad or good. [...] My other phone is an iphone 17 pro max. I feel like the battery degrades at about the same rate on both phones, but I use the pixel more.
The author mentions that the issue is present both on 16 Pro Max and 17 Pro Max. When I upgraded to 17 Pro Max from my 14 Pro I noticed it too, even thought I might've gotten a defective camera unit. I think it all boils down to a different lens with a different focal length.
iPhone 17 Pro Max long-term: how it holds up
Long-term owners feel about the same as new ones, so the iPhone 17 Pro Max holds up.
- 6–12 months100% recommend · 3 owners
- 1 year or more100% recommend · 3 owners
The claims, and the evidence
What the brand claims
- A19 Pro chipFew owner reports
- Best battery life ever on iPhoneOwners agreeBattery & charging: 7 of 8 positive
- Aluminum unibody design with vapor chamber coolingFew owner reports
- 48MP Pro Fusion camera system — all three rear cameras are 48MPOwners agreeCamera: 7 of 9 positive
- Up to 8x optical-quality zoomOwners agreeCamera: 7 of 9 positive
- 18MP Center Stage front cameraOwners agreeCamera: 7 of 9 positive
- Ceramic Shield 2 front coverFew owner reports
- 6.9-inch Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion up to 120HzMixedDisplay: 3 of 5 positive
- Up to 3000 nits peak outdoor brightnessMixedDisplay: 3 of 5 positive
- Up to 50% charge in about 20 minutes with a 40W adapterOwners agreeBattery & charging: 7 of 8 positive
What owners report
“Team orange baby!!! Got my 17 pro max as an earlier birthday gift back in December and I love it!!”
after 9 monthsView on YouTube“Traded my 15 pro for a 17 pro max December last year. Really been enjoying it, not a heavy user, more for photography / video and editing in lightroom / DaVinci Resolve on my ipad afterward. So far battery is still 100% with 65 cycle!”
after 10 monthsView on YouTube“Here’s my one year ownership review. Great phone, great battery life, great camera, iOS 26 stability has been good, but not great. [...] I can’t speak to the durability, considering I’ve had my phone in a case since day one however when I took the phone out of the case to clean it, I noticed a chip on my plateau which is weird considering it’s never been dropped out of a case. 92% battery health after a full year. I will be grabbing a foldable this year as long as the price is within reason. [...]”
after 1 yearView on YouTube“My experience with the new Siri is objectively worse. I am on an Iphone 17 Pro Max and all searches are very slow, accessing utilities has slowed down quite a bit, lagginess when settings timers. [...] I've been using the OS since the RC. [...]”
Common iPhone 17 Pro Max problems
Issues at least two owners independently report.
- Software & AI3 mentionsView on Hacker News
“My experience with the new Siri is objectively worse. I am on an Iphone 17 Pro Max and all searches are very slow, accessing utilities has slowed down quite a bit, lagginess when settings timers. [...] I've been using the OS since the RC. [...]”
- Controls & input2 mentionsView on Hacker News
“I'm on 26.4 on a brand new 17 Pro Max, recently upgraded from a 13 Pro Max, and I have noticed absolutely no difference in the keyboard. It's still awful.”
- Display2 mentionsView on Hacker News
“"Just get a bigger screen" is such a lame excuse, and it doesn't even work. Here's what chatgpt.com looks like on an iPhone 17 Pro Max with the page zoom turned up: It's such an absolutely pathetic use of the viewport space. And this is exactly that kind of thing that giving pages separate text scaling awareness instead of only page zoom will be able to improve. [...] Insisting that blind people should accept wasting left and right thirds of their screen space (seriously, look at the size of the chat bubble where you can see a tiny slice of it peeking through) on zooming in the white space and just buy bigger devices that don't even exist to accommodate this, all because uniformly blowing up all page elements is easier for developers is… I'll be polite and say it's not something I agree with.”
- Camera2 mentionsView on Hacker News
“"Just get a bigger screen" is such a lame excuse, and it doesn't even work. Here's what chatgpt.com looks like on an iPhone 17 Pro Max with the page zoom turned up: It's such an absolutely pathetic use of the viewport space. And this is exactly that kind of thing that giving pages separate text scaling awareness instead of only page zoom will be able to improve. [...] Insisting that blind people should accept wasting left and right thirds of their screen space (seriously, look at the size of the chat bubble where you can see a tiny slice of it peeking through) on zooming in the white space and just buy bigger devices that don't even exist to accommodate this, all because uniformly blowing up all page elements is easier for developers is… I'll be polite and say it's not something I agree with.”