iPhone 18 Pro Max Review

The Max is the 18 Pro with more room inside it, and this year the room goes almost entirely to the cell. It measures 5567 mAh in the eSIM model against 4288 mAh in the smaller Pro, and Apple quotes 45 hours of video playback and 30 hours of ordinary use on a charge. Two days of moderate use is not a stretch, which has never been true of an iPhone before.

Everything else carries across unchanged. The A20 Pro on a 2 nm process with 12GB of memory, the 48 megapixel main camera and its f/1.5 to f/4.0 variable aperture, the 48 megapixel periscope at 4x, the 48 megapixel ultra wide and an 18 megapixel front camera. The screen is a 6.9 inch LTPO panel at 2868 by 1320, the same 460 ppi and the same 3000 nit outdoor peak as the 6.3 inch version, simply bigger. Ceramic Shield 2 front and back, and the same four finishes in black, silver, glacier and burgundy.

The cost is physical. At 249 grams and 163.4 by 78 by 8.8 mm this is a two handed phone that will not sit flat in every pocket, and the 38 gram gap over the 18 Pro registers within an hour of holding it. Storage runs 256GB to 2TB, the price opens at $1,299, and the hundred dollars over the smaller Pro buys the size and the endurance and nothing else. For a buyer who charges once and stops thinking about it, that is the right trade.