iPhone 17 Pro Max vs Vivo X300 Ultra

iPhone 17 Pro Max

Apple

8.9

Apple's best Pro Max in years

Vivo X300 Ultra

Vivo

8.7

The video and zoom monster

iPhone 17 Pro Max

What Reviewers Agree On

The 4,823 mAh battery and A19 Pro efficiency deliver the longest battery life ever on an iPhone — Apple's 39-hour video playback claim is backed up by record-setting lab measurements at Notebookcheck and Tom's Guide.
The new triple 48MP rear camera with the bigger telephoto sensor delivers a genuine improvement in 4x/8x reach and detail over the iPhone 16 Pro Max — the closest the iPhone has come to a Pixel/Samsung in flexible zoom.
The laser-welded vapor chamber and aluminum unibody noticeably reduce thermal throttling under sustained load — gaming and ProRes video recording stay cooler and frame-rate-stable far longer than on the iPhone 16 Pro.
The 6.9-inch ProMotion display hits 3,000 nits peak with a new anti-reflective coating, making it one of the easiest phones to read in direct sunlight even if Samsung's S25 Ultra still wins outright on glare.
The A19 Pro is the fastest chip Apple has shipped — 12GB of RAM up from 8GB, multi-core Geekbench around 9,500-9,994, and benchmark wins over the iPhone 16 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL.

Pros & Cons

iPhone 17 Pro Max

Pros

The 4,823 mAh battery and A19 Pro efficiency deliver the longest battery life ever on an iPhone — Apple's 39-hour video playback claim is backed up by record-setting lab measurements at Notebookcheck and Tom's Guide.
The new triple 48MP rear camera with the bigger telephoto sensor delivers a genuine improvement in 4x/8x reach and detail over the iPhone 16 Pro Max — the closest the iPhone has come to a Pixel/Samsung in flexible zoom.
The laser-welded vapor chamber and aluminum unibody noticeably reduce thermal throttling under sustained load — gaming and ProRes video recording stay cooler and frame-rate-stable far longer than on the iPhone 16 Pro.
The 6.9-inch ProMotion display hits 3,000 nits peak with a new anti-reflective coating, making it one of the easiest phones to read in direct sunlight even if Samsung's S25 Ultra still wins outright on glare.

Detailed Comparison

Display

iPhone 17 Pro Max

The 6.9-inch LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED carries over from the 16 Pro Max but gains Ceramic Shield 2 (Apple claims 3x better scratch resistance), a seven-layer anti-reflective coating, and a peak brightness boost from 2,000 to 3,000 nits in sunlight. Nearly every reviewer rates it among the best smartphone displays sold today, with Samsung's S25 Ultra still winning on outright anti-glare and a minority noting that auto-brightness rarely sustains the full peak.

The 3,000-nit peak brightness and anti-reflective coating make the iPhone 17 Pro Max easier to read in direct sunlight than its predecessor, with significantly less indoor glare from artificial light.
The screen has the new Ceramic Shield 2 with anti-reflective coating for 'incredible legibility' in challenging lighting conditions, though Apple still owes its biggest scratch resistance claims to a stretch.
There is still much more glare on the iPhone 17 Pro Max than on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra's Gorilla Armor 2 panel — Apple has improved it, but the S25 Ultra still wins outright.

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Deal Breakers

At 233 grams it is one of the heaviest non-folding flagships on the market and a step backward from the lighter titanium iPhone 15/16 Pro Max — Ars, Wired and 9to5Mac all flag the heft as the first thing you notice.
Aluminum is much softer than titanium or steel, and 'scratchgate' is real — independent iFixit testing confirmed anodization flakes on the camera-bump edges, and a vocal r/iphone contingent reports visible marks within weeks of caseless use.
Apple Intelligence is still essentially absent — reviewers from Wired, Trusted Reviews, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac and Reddit users all flag that Siri remains useless and the AI story is a generation behind Gemini and Galaxy AI.
The two-tone aluminum-and-glass design with visible camera-cutout seams is divisive — Ars Technica, Forbes commenters, and an r/gadgets thread all call the back 'unfinished-looking,' 'lumpy,' or 'not Jony Ive's iPhone' design language.
The 'optical-quality' 8x zoom is actually a digital crop of the 4x 48MP sensor, not true periscope optics — Vivo, Xiaomi, Honor and the Pixel 10 Pro XL still capture more detail at long range with real periscope hardware.
Reception-quality issues with the new N1 wireless chip — Reddit r/apple and r/iphone owners report Bluetooth audio dropouts in cars and AirPods Pro 3 disconnects that didn't happen on the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

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.

Cons

At 233 grams it is one of the heaviest non-folding flagships on the market and a step backward from the lighter titanium iPhone 15/16 Pro Max — Ars, Wired and 9to5Mac all flag the heft as the first thing you notice.
Aluminum is much softer than titanium or steel, and 'scratchgate' is real — independent iFixit testing confirmed anodization flakes on the camera-bump edges, and a vocal r/iphone contingent reports visible marks within weeks of caseless use.
Apple Intelligence is still essentially absent — reviewers from Wired, Trusted Reviews, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac and Reddit users all flag that Siri remains useless and the AI story is a generation behind Gemini and Galaxy AI.
The two-tone aluminum-and-glass design with visible camera-cutout seams is divisive — Ars Technica, Forbes commenters, and an r/gadgets thread all call the back 'unfinished-looking,' 'lumpy,' or 'not Jony Ive's iPhone' design language.
The 'optical-quality' 8x zoom is actually a digital crop of the 4x 48MP sensor, not true periscope optics — Vivo, Xiaomi, Honor and the Pixel 10 Pro XL still capture more detail at long range with real periscope hardware.
Reception-quality issues with the new N1 wireless chip — Reddit r/apple and r/iphone owners report Bluetooth audio dropouts in cars and AirPods Pro 3 disconnects that didn't happen on the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

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.

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.

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.

Battery & Charging

iPhone 17 Pro Max

The Pro Max's 4,823 mAh battery (5,088 mAh on the eSIM-only model) is the largest Apple has ever shipped, and Apple's 39-hour video playback claim is the longest battery life ever on any iPhone. Notebookcheck calls it a battery-life record-setter, Forbes gets 13-14 hours of heavy outdoor use with 20% to spare, and Ars Technica found overnight standby drop minimal. The flip side: GSMArena's web-browsing test actually came in shorter than the 16 Pro Max (a Liquid Glass / iOS 26 issue some suspect), and a heavy r/iphone user reports no meaningful upgrade over a fresh-battery 14 Pro Max. Wired charging finally goes to 40W, wireless to 25W via Qi2 with built-in magnets.

Apple's 4,823 mAh battery on the Pro Max is the largest ever in an iPhone, and the company claims 39 hours of video playback — the longest battery-life claim Apple has ever made for any iPhone.
The iPhone 17 Pro Max sets new battery-life records — Apple has put together a very convincing package and battery endurance is now the clear benchmark for the entire industry.
The Pro Max can last a heavy 13-14 hour day outside with continuous use and still have over 20% left at the end — genuine all-day battery for the first time on a Pro iPhone.
After forgetting to plug it in overnight, the Pro Max still had 30 percent charge by morning — enough that you don't have to think about the battery at all anymore.
Got more than 5 hours of screen-on time consistently and 55% left in the tank — the Pro Max battery is now good enough that you might not have to charge it every day.
Wired charging hits a real 40W with Apple's new Dynamic Power Adapter — 50% in 20 minutes, and a full charge in about an hour. The first time iPhone charging speed feels competitive with Android.
Wireless charging jumps to 25W via Qi2 with built-in MagSafe magnets — the first iPhone to natively support Qi2 magnets rather than requiring a magnetic case like Samsung still does on the S25 Ultra.
GSMArena's lab measured web-browsing battery life actually *shorter* than the iPhone 16 Pro Max — the headline 'battery king' claim only holds in video playback and gaming, not all workloads.
Battery life is not as impressive as everyone says — heavy real-world usage on a UK physical-SIM unit shows no noticeable improvement over an iPhone 14 Pro Max with a fresh battery.
After four years on an iPhone 13 Pro Max, the Pro Max battery feels infinite — even on a heavy NY trip with photo and navigation use, it wouldn't drop below 85% by end of day.

Vivo X300 Ultra

Vivo grew the silicon-carbon cell 10% to 6,600mAh while keeping the body the same size. Real-world endurance is strong — ~16h active-use score, ~7h heavy screen-on, 13–14 hour days with charge to spare — and 100W wired refills it in under an hour, with 40W wireless.

Vivo increased the battery by 10% to 6,600mAh despite the phone being practically the same size on paper.
In our battery test it earned an active-use score of almost 16 hours; 100W charging took it 0–66% in 30 minutes and a full charge in 46 minutes, plus 40W wireless. A charger is in the box except in Europe.
On the China version I'm finishing entire 13–14 hour days with 25–30% left; the global version keeps the 6,600mAh cell so battery life should comfortably last 12–13 hours of heavy use.
Getting nearly 7 hours of screen-on time with very heavy usage from the 6,600mAh silicon-carbon unit, with 100W wired and 40W wireless charging support.
After a 4-hour heavy-usage simulation the phone still had ~45% battery left, which is solid by today's standards, and 100W wired charging takes about 45 minutes to full.