As with many iPhone users, I tend to upgrade my phone every two years, but this year felt different.
My iPhone 15 Pro Max, outside of some minor battery degradation, was hardly a slouch. Using web apps, running a small business from its 6.7-inch display, and taking family photos was just as easy as it was when I bought the phone in 2023, so for the first time in a while, I didn’t feel like I needed to upgrade to Apple’s latest flagship.
I joke, but I’m not being entirely facetious – the iPhone 15 Pro Max remains a great phone, and if I didn’t get such a great trade-in deal for the iPhone 17 Pro Max, I’d still be using one right now. That said, if you’re curious about whether it’s worth the jump from an iPhone 15 Pro Max to an iPhone 17 Pro Max, here are the biggest changes I’ve noticed.
Brightness boost
Naturally, the first thing you notice when powering on a new iPhone is the screen, but I’d be lying if I said the switch from a 6.7-inch panel in the 15 Pro Max to a newer, 6.9-inch one sparked any real excitement.
What I did notice, however, is the improved outdoor brightness on the 17 Pro Max. I like to walk for around 30 minutes each day, and every now and again, the sun would be at an angle that made the iPhone 15 Pro Max tough to read even at max brightness. That’s no longer the case with the 3,000 nits of brightness at my disposal on the 17 Pro Max.
Apple’s newest iPhone is still a far cry from the contrast-heavy Samsung devices that almost feel as though you’re being blasted in the eyes with colors, but the improved brightness of the 17 Pro Max does make Liquid Glass feel much more akin to something floating on the screen that you manipulate with your thumb and fingers.
The software experience
Liquid Glass has certainly been contentious since its announcement, beta rollout, and eventual launch in iOS 26, but I enjoyed using it on the iPhone 15 Pro Max with the caveat that every now and then, it felt a little slower than iOS 18.
On iPhone 17 Pro Max, though, it’s a different story. Thanks to its superior A19 Pro chipset and larger 12GB RAM capacity, Apple’s newer phone has a zip to it that I honestly didn’t expect to notice, and that boost in RAM means that Apple Intelligence, as dull as it is to work with right now, does feel a little snappier.
Camera upgrades
It’s not new for the iPhone 17 lineup, but the Camera Control option (introduced with the iPhone 16 series) is a nice-to-have that I rarely find myself using – although it has allowed me to give up the camera shortcut on my lock screen.
It’s a neat trick to be able to swipe to adjust focal lengths and all that good stuff, but I’m still much more comfortable prodding the screen (although I wish the camera app wasn’t as oversimplified as it is in iOS 26).
More impressive are the sensors on the iPhone 17 Pro Max, though. I loved the main camera on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, but I always felt a distinct drop in quality whenever I switched to the ultra-wide and telephoto lenses. Now that they’re all 48MP on the iPhone 17 Pro, I no longer have to make that compromise, and that’s led me to want to explore more with different lens types to shake up family photos, group shots, and more. Nice work, Apple.
Equally deserving of praise is the new selfie camera, which also gets a resolution bump from 12MP to 18MP. The most impressive change, though, is the new square sensor, which means you can capture landscape selfies without awkwardly twisting your arm.
The vapor chamber
I always compare Apple chip upgrades to the experience of driving on major roads in the UK – sure, you can drive a car that reaches 200mph, but the speed limit is still 70mph, so there’s just not really a great deal you can do with all that power (you could argue the same about the iPad, too).
As I mentioned in the introduction to this article, my iPhone 15 Pro Max never felt sluggish, whether I was navigating huge Notion databases, firing off emails, or playing games. What it did do, though, was get a little warm on occasion.
Something like Marvel Snap would cause minimal heat, but cranking up to something like League of Legends: Wild Rift would make the back of the phone feel a little warm.
Not only has Apple taken the next step, performance-wise, with its new A19 Pro chip (which benchmarks considerably higher than the A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro Max, because of course it does), but it’s also integrated a vapor chamber into the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and switched back to aluminum from titanium.
I must admit, those changes don’t result in a colossal real-world difference, but if I do, for some wild reason, decide to start cutting footage on my phone or working on more complex creative projects, then it’s nice to know I won’t feel the burn.
The negligibles
All of these key points are buttressed by some additional positives. Naturally, moving to a new phone means a new battery, and I have to say, it’s great to have a phone last almost all day, even if I forget to charge it the night before.
And, if your wallet is as large as your photo library, there’s a 2TB version of the iPhone 17 Pro Max available. Mind you, that’s the same size as my MacBook, so I didn’t opt for that this time.
Finally, Apple’s new colors are nice. I wasn’t brave enough to choose Cosmic Orange, but Deep Blue is great and, unlike my Midnight MacBook, it doesn’t chip.
Finally, by moving to a more recent phone, it’s likely that I’ll benefit from two additional years of iOS updates. Given iOS 26 still goes all the way back to the iPhone 11, that’s not something you’ll need to consider now, but it’s still worth noting.
Should you make the jump?
As much as I’m impressed by my iPhone 17 Pro Max, there’s nothing it does drastically differently from the 15 Pro Max. But what it does do, it does better.
If your current phone is a 15 Pro model, you can undoubtedly wait another year for the iPhone 18 Pro unless you’re particularly keen on the latest model’s better camera, improved performance (and thermals), and the inevitable deluge of Apple Intelligence features that might become exclusive to the iPhone 17 series once Apple finally gets the AI ball rolling again.
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