iPhone 17 Pro Max vs 14 Pro Max — Should You Upgrade?
The iPhone 17 Pro Max is new and you probably want it. But should you upgrade from the 14 Pro Max? I put them side by side.
This video was sponsored by UGREEN.
Design
The deep purple 14 Pro Max is the third generation of the flat design that started with the iPhone 12: a bigger camera bump, fingerprint-prone stainless steel sides, a bit heavy, but those flat sides give me more control and make it easier to pick up off a table. The 17 Pro Max finally brings a bold color with cosmic orange, and the camera bump is now a camera plateau. It’s big; no other way to say it. The phone is machined from one piece of aluminum, with matte sides that don’t pick up fingerprints, but more rounded edges, which make it harder to pick up off a table. I’ve dropped it a few times trying. There’s a glass cutout on the back for MagSafe.
The 17 Pro Max is slightly bigger in every dimension, and at 233 g it’s just 7 g lighter than the 14 Pro Max’s 240 g; the weight savings from the titanium 15 Pro have crept back. You also trade the ring/silent switch for the Action button (mine opens the flashlight), get Camera Control on the right, and get USB-C instead of Lightning.
Battery and charging
I’ve had zero battery issues since at least the 13 Pro Max, but this is a decent upgrade: 39 hours of video playback versus 29 on the 14 Pro Max when new, and your 14’s battery has probably degraded. Yesterday I used 57% of the 17 Pro Max’s battery over 6 hours 50 minutes of screen time. The previous Sunday, 73% over 7 hours 45 minutes. I’m not getting anywhere close to running out.
Wired, 50% takes 35 minutes on the 14 and 20 on the 17. MagSafe goes from 15 W to 25 W.
Display
More similar than different: 6.7 vs 6.9 inches, both 460 ppi OLED with ProMotion, always-on display (which I turn off), 1,000 nits typical and 1,600 HDR, and the Dynamic Island. The 17 has Ceramic Shield 2 with better anti-reflection, but it’s still pretty glary. Apple says 3,000 nits outdoors versus 2,000, but outside in the sun, and under a studio lamp, I saw absolutely no difference. In the dark, though, the 17 dims to just one nit.
Performance
A16 Bionic with 6 GB versus A19 Pro with 12 GB. Geekbench 6: 2,608 vs 3,840 single-core, 47% faster (nearly my M4 Max MacBook Pro’s 3,867), and 6,241 vs 9,882 multi-core, 58% faster. Metal: 23,929 vs 45,861, 129% faster. In a ray-tracing test, 14 fps vs 43 fps, because the 14 can’t do hardware ray tracing.
Despite the 17’s vapor chamber, a 20-minute 3DMark stress test only got it a few degrees cooler: 114 °F versus 109 °F. Both dropped frame rates significantly after a couple of loops.
In everyday use? There’s really no difference. Apps open in the same time, scrolling is the same, and even Call of Duty plays the same. I’m just as bad on both.
Cameras
The 14 Pro Max has 48 MP main, 12 MP ultra wide, 12 MP 3x telephoto. The 17 Pro Max is 48 MP across the board, with a 4x telephoto that crops to 8x, and digital zoom to 40x versus 15x.
The themes: HDR on the 17 is a lot better (the 14 blows out clouds), and Apple has toned down the sharpening, so leaves and weeds look natural instead of ultra-processed. Not every shot: on one magnolia tree, the 17 looked worse to me. With zoom, the 14’s 3x invents detail, while the 17’s 8x crop and 15x zoom are much better, and in my dark network closet the 17 at 15x reads every digit where the 14 is a noisy mess. Zoom-lens portraits have more natural bokeh and shadows on the 17.
The 18 MP square selfie camera has better HDR, less sharpening, less red skin tone, and lets you take landscape selfies without rotating the phone, with Center Stage widening for groups. Video adds ProRes, ProRes Log, ProRes RAW, 4K120 slow motion, audio mix, and dual capture with the front and back cameras at once.
Speakers, wireless and Apple Intelligence
The 14 Pro Max is louder (89 dB vs 86) and better for podcasts over shower or kitchen noise, but a bit tinny at max. The 17 is more balanced and better for music. The 17 has Wi-Fi 7 (160 MHz, which is plenty), nearly double the speed on my network, though Wi-Fi 6 is enough for almost everyone, plus second-gen Ultra Wideband, Thread, and Bluetooth 6. And it has Apple Intelligence: visual intelligence, live translation, Clean Up in Photos, Genmoji, and writing tools. The Siri stuff basically doesn’t exist until it does.
Should you upgrade?
Yes, if you need the camera or the battery: a hobbyist, a pro, or you have little kids and want to capture every moment, or you’re a heavy user with a degraded battery. Everything else adds up, but those are bonuses. For casual everyday use, the 14 Pro Max still performs very much like the 17 Pro Max.
Links
- https://amzn.to/48qKneQ
- https://amzn.to/42LeppU
- https://ugreen.pxf.io/dOWYZy
- https://amzn.to/47XxGbc
- Gaming controller for iPhone 14 (lightning)
- Gaming controller for iPhone 17 (USB-C)
- Migrate everything to your iPhone 17 Pro
In this video
- 00:00 iPhone 17 Pro Max vs 14 Pro Max: Should You Upgrade?
- 00:19 🔍 Design & Build Quality Differences
- 01:33 📏 Weight, Size, Materials & Ports
- 02:50 🔋 Battery Life & Charging Speed
- 05:56 📱 Display Features & Brightness
- 08:44 ⚙️ Performance & Benchmark Scores
- 11:00 🎮 Gaming Performance & Thermal Testing
- 12:38 📸 Camera Comparison & Zoom Capabilities
- 16:18 🤳 Front-Facing Camera & Portrait Photography
- 17:05 🎥 Video Upgrades (ProRes, Dual Capture, Slow-Mo)
- 18:00 🔊 Speaker Quality
- 18:40 🌐 Connectivity: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, Ultra Wideband
- 20:30 🤖 Apple Intelligence Features (Genmoji, Cleanup, Writing Tools)
- 21:17 📈 Final Verdict: Should You Upgrade?
Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.
