19 hours and 6 minutes. That's the battery figure Matt Talks Tech measured on the iPhone 18 Pro Max after a month as its daily phone, against just over 17 hours from the 17 Pro Max it replaced. The channel lists ten things it likes, then tells most 17 Pro Max owners to keep what they have.
Who should upgrade, per the video
| From a 17 Pro Max | Keep it; the gains aren't worth selling a phone for |
|---|---|
| From a 16 Pro Max | A battery replacement may be enough |
| From a 15 Pro Max or older | Upgrade; the differences show up every day |
| From Android | Upgrade |
Through a full day
- Battery. Over the month the phone rarely reached zero unless the channel pushed it hard, a change it says it hadn't felt in years of annual upgrades.
- Charging. Apple quotes 50% in 20 minutes over USB-C and 50% in 30 minutes on MagSafe; the video's dead-to-full USB-C charge took just under an hour.
- Vapor chamber. The larger chamber spreads heat through long tripod recordings and gaming sessions, so the phone stays comfortable to hold and frame rates hold, by the channel's account.
- C2 modem. The UK review unit sometimes showed an extra bar of signal next to a 17 Pro Max, with downloads only a hair faster. US models skip it for Qualcomm, as the iPhone 18 Pro Max US modem report explained.
Camera
- Variable aperture. Choosing what sits in and out of focus is easier on the main camera, and the channel says the pro controls no longer feel digitally faked. It stops short of calling the photos better.
- Zoom. The ultra wide and the 4x telephoto are both new 48MP sensors, so a 3.9x crop keeps its detail where the 17 Pro Max went soft around 3.5x. The video puts the useful ceiling at 15x to 20x and says the 40x maximum looks like a phone from a decade ago.
- Cinematic video. Focus can move after recording, from a blurry background subject to the foreground or back, and subject tracking keeps a moving person sharp. The channel uses it to fix its own missed focus.
Screen and speed
- Display. The 3,000-nit outdoor peak carries over from the 17 Pro Max, and it stayed readable through a sunny month in the UK.
- A20 Pro. The channel cites benchmarks that put single-core and GPU scores between the M4 and the M5, and 12GB of memory kept app switching free of lag.
- Dynamic Island. It's trimmed at one end and sits closer to center, so it covers less of a video.
The advice for iPhoners on a 17 Pro Max is the part I'd underline. Same screen, a modem US buyers don't get, and two hours of battery leave little to pay for, while the 15 Pro Max comparison shows how wide the gap gets three years back.
