iPhone 15 Pro Max vs Vivo X300 Ultra

iPhone 15 Pro Max

Apple

8.8

Best iPhone of 2023, transformative titanium + 5x periscope + USB-C

Vivo X300 Ultra

Vivo

8.7

The video and zoom monster

iPhone 15 Pro Max

What Reviewers Agree On

Grade-5 titanium frame makes it ~20g lighter than the 14 Pro Max — most-praised in-hand feel of any iPhone yet (221g)
A17 Pro 3nm chip with hardware ray tracing — fastest mobile silicon at launch, future-proofs for Apple Intelligence on iOS 18
5x Tetraprism periscope telephoto (120mm) is Pro Max exclusive — first iPhone to break past 3x optical, with computational zoom to 25x
USB-C 3.0 finally arrives on iPhone (10Gbps on Pro/Max only — standard 15 caps at USB 2.0 speeds)
Customizable Action Button replaces the mute switch — opens camera, shortcut, focus mode, voice memo, magnifier and more

Pros & Cons

iPhone 15 Pro Max

Pros

Grade-5 titanium frame makes it ~20g lighter than the 14 Pro Max — most-praised in-hand feel of any iPhone yet (221g)
A17 Pro 3nm chip with hardware ray tracing — fastest mobile silicon at launch, future-proofs for Apple Intelligence on iOS 18
5x Tetraprism periscope telephoto (120mm) is Pro Max exclusive — first iPhone to break past 3x optical, with computational zoom to 25x
USB-C 3.0 finally arrives on iPhone (10Gbps on Pro/Max only — standard 15 caps at USB 2.0 speeds)
Customizable Action Button replaces the mute switch — opens camera, shortcut, focus mode, voice memo, magnifier and more

Detailed Comparison

Display

iPhone 15 Pro Max

6.7-inch Super Retina XDR OLED with ProMotion 120Hz adaptive refresh and a 2000-nit peak brightness — the best display Apple has shipped. Dynamic Island carries over from the 14 Pro Max with no major changes.

6.7-inch Super Retina XDR OLED, 2796×1290, ProMotion 120Hz adaptive (1-120Hz), 2000-nit peak HDR — best iPhone display ever shipped.
Display brightness easily readable in direct sunlight — meaningful improvement over the 14 Pro Max's 1600-nit peak.
Dynamic Island carries over from 14 Pro Max with no major feature changes — still the iPhone's most distinctive UI element.
ProMotion 120Hz on the Pro is 'significantly smoother' than the standard iPhone 15's locked 60Hz — a real-world differentiator.

Vivo X300 Ultra

A 6.82-inch 144Hz LTPO AMOLED, now flat rather than quad-curved. Lab measurements put real brightness near 1,900 nits in auto and ~3,300 nits on a small window — among the best panels on any phone — and reviewers single out content consumption and clarity as standouts.

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Vivo X300 Ultra

What Reviewers Agree On

The camera system — twin ~1-inch 200MP main and 200MP 85mm periscope plus a large ultrawide — is the best-equipped on any 2026 phone and the entire reason the device exists.
Video is class-leading: 4K 120fps 10-bit Log with Dolby Vision recorded on-device (no SSD), 8K30 across the rear cameras, and 4K 60fps on every lens including the selfie.
Battery life is genuinely strong — roughly 16 hours active-use score, ~7h heavy screen-on time, and 13–14 hour days with charge to spare, on the 6,600mAh cell.
The Zeiss 200mm/400mm telephoto extenders deliver real, usable optical reach (8.7x and 17.4x) with surprisingly good handheld stabilisation.
100W wired charging refills the big battery in roughly 46–50 minutes, with 40W wireless on top.
The 6.82-inch 144Hz LTPO AMOLED is among the best displays available, hitting ~1,900 nits in auto and ~3,300 nits peak.

Deal Breakers

The 35mm (~1.5x) default main focal length is polarising — many reviewers find it too tight/zoomed versus the usual 24mm.
It heats up quickly under sustained camera or gaming load and throttles to roughly 60–65% stability in prolonged stress tests.
The full experience needs the expensive Photography Kit — the global bundle approaches €2,600 and the 200mm lens isn't in every box.
Notebookcheck found it 'hardly better than the X300 Pro in camera performance despite top-notch hardware', and Linus preferred Oppo's less over-sharpened processing.
It launched in China first with a rocky early software state (fixed via updates), and global availability/pricing is limited and steep.

Vivo X300 Ultra

Pros

The camera system — twin ~1-inch 200MP main and 200MP 85mm periscope plus a large ultrawide — is the best-equipped on any 2026 phone and the entire reason the device exists.
Video is class-leading: 4K 120fps 10-bit Log with Dolby Vision recorded on-device (no SSD), 8K30 across the rear cameras, and 4K 60fps on every lens including the selfie.
Battery life is genuinely strong — roughly 16 hours active-use score, ~7h heavy screen-on time, and 13–14 hour days with charge to spare, on the 6,600mAh cell.
The Zeiss 200mm/400mm telephoto extenders deliver real, usable optical reach (8.7x and 17.4x) with surprisingly good handheld stabilisation.
100W wired charging refills the big battery in roughly 46–50 minutes, with 40W wireless on top.
The 6.82-inch 144Hz LTPO AMOLED is among the best displays available, hitting ~1,900 nits in auto and ~3,300 nits peak.

Cons

The 35mm (~1.5x) default main focal length is polarising — many reviewers find it too tight/zoomed versus the usual 24mm.
It heats up quickly under sustained camera or gaming load and throttles to roughly 60–65% stability in prolonged stress tests.
The full experience needs the expensive Photography Kit — the global bundle approaches €2,600 and the 200mm lens isn't in every box.
Notebookcheck found it 'hardly better than the X300 Pro in camera performance despite top-notch hardware', and Linus preferred Oppo's less over-sharpened processing.
It launched in China first with a rocky early software state (fixed via updates), and global availability/pricing is limited and steep.

We measured a maximum of over 1,900 nits in auto-brightness mode and over 3,300 nits when lighting up a smaller portion of the screen.
Consuming content, scrolling the web, pixel-peeping and zooming in on text — it doesn't get any clearer, or with the 144Hz any smoother, than the display on the X300 Ultra.
It delivers an excellent max brightness of around 1,935 nits with a 75% white pattern and a peak of 3,328 nits with a 10% pattern.
Vivo has gone with a flat display this time, a clear shift from the quad-curved style of the X200 Ultra.
It's a 6.82-inch AMOLED with a claimed 4,500-nit HDR peak that can reach that figure in a one-person window watching HDR content; PWM sits around 3.5% at max brightness, better for flicker-sensitive users.
An absolutely stunning display with terrific, bass-heavy stereo speakers to match.

Cameras

iPhone 15 Pro Max

48MP main + 12MP ultrawide + 12MP 5x Tetraprism periscope telephoto (Pro Max exclusive) + 12MP TrueDepth selfie. The 5x periscope is the headline upgrade — first iPhone past 3x optical, with computational zoom up to 25x.

Cameras: 48MP main (f/1.78, sensor-shift OIS), 12MP ultrawide (f/2.2, 13mm), 12MP 5x Tetraprism periscope telephoto (120mm, f/2.8), 12MP TrueDepth selfie.
5x Tetraprism is Pro Max EXCLUSIVE — the smaller iPhone 15 Pro is capped at 3x telephoto, the first time Apple meaningfully gated a camera feature by size.
Computational zoom extends usable range to 10x and 25x — beyond that, optical clarity degrades, but the 5x base is a meaningful step up from 3x.
vs Samsung S23 Ultra's 10x periscope — Samsung still wins at maximum reach; iPhone wins on natural color, video stabilization and ecosystem.
Pro photo modes: ProRAW capture, ProRes video at 4K60 to external storage via USB-C 3.0 — content-creator-grade workflow finally on iPhone.
Front-facing camera improvements help selfies and video calls — best for content creators per WIRED.

Vivo X300 Ultra

The reason the X300 Ultra exists: a near-1-inch 200MP 35mm main (Sony Lytia 901), a 200MP 85mm periscope, and the best ultrawide sensor on the market, tuned with Zeiss. Reviewers near-universally rate it the best-equipped camera phone of 2026 — with two important caveats: the 35mm default is divisive, and on raw image quality it's only marginally ahead of the cheaper X300 Pro.

At the center is a 200MP main that's nearly a 1-inch sensor (Sony Lytia 901), backed by a 200MP 85mm-equivalent periscope telephoto — the phone is focused on camera quality and, even more so, video.
Featuring three extra-large image sensors, the X300 Ultra's uncompromising camera hardware earned a solid rating — but it's hardly better than the cheaper X300 Pro in actual camera performance despite the top-notch hardware.
I'm not sure I've seen better results from even 1-inch sensors — it's so close to 1-inch and the 35mm focal length makes for more cinematic-looking shots; the 85mm periscope is the sweet spot for portraits.
It still holds the record for the best portrait-mode photos on a smartphone, especially at 85mm and 135mm; the 14mm ultrawide is sharp edge to edge.

Performance

iPhone 15 Pro Max

First-ever 3nm A17 Pro chip with hardware ray tracing, 8GB RAM and NVMe storage — the fastest mobile silicon at launch. Launch overheating issues plagued early units but iOS 17.0.3 mitigated. Future-proofs the phone for Apple Intelligence on iOS 18+.

A17 Pro is Apple's first 3nm chip, with 8GB RAM and NVMe storage — fastest mobile silicon at launch, hardware-accelerated ray tracing.
Launch overheating: A17 Pro ran hot during gaming and 4K recording in the first weeks — iOS 17.0.3 update mitigated but didn't fully eliminate.
Console-grade games (Resident Evil 4, Assassin's Creed Mirage, Death Stranding) now run natively on the A17 Pro — first phone to support them.
Apple Intelligence compatibility — A17 Pro is the minimum chip required for iOS 18.1 Apple Intelligence; future-proofs the phone for 2024+ AI features.
In 2025, A17 Pro 'is an absolute beast' and 'handles everything you throw at it' — performance has aged extremely well.

Vivo X300 Ultra

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 plus Vivo's custom imaging silicon delivers flagship benchmark numbers and strong gaming, but the camera-heavy hardware runs hot — sustained stress tests show roughly 60–65% stability and the camera app warms it up fast.

At the heart is Qualcomm's current flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, supplemented by Vivo's custom VS1 and V3-Plus imaging chips.
It boots in 16 seconds (vs 21s for the S26 Ultra and 19s for the iPhone 17 Pro Max) and posts an AnTuTu score over 3,800,000, stronger than Samsung.
In a prolonged stress test it throttled CPU performance to about 60% of peak — in line with other high-powered flagships — and 3DMark stability landed around 63–66%.
It gets a bit hot after 30–40 minutes of gaming, but with no throttling even past an hour and never uncomfortable to hold; boost mode at max graphics gives around 4 hours of Wuthering Waves on a full charge.
Native 120fps gaming with smooth/very-high graphics in many titles, with temperature barely crossing 35°C and power draw around 4W in battle-royale modes.