iPhone 18 Pro Max review: Peak smartphone experience

Smartphones are at that stage where they have stopped surprising people. It is a mature technology, and hence year after year when we get the fresh batch of phones, these devices tend to offer incremental updates over their predecessors. The iPhone 18 Pro Max — everything I write also applies on the iPhone 18 Pro — too is an incremental update. It looks almost the same as the iPhone 17 Pro Max. It works similarly. If you upgrade to it thinking that your smartphone experience is going to be radically different, you may not get your wish.So, what is new in the iPhone 18 Pro Max? A fair amount. There are tweaks galore, and even a few headline-worthy features. Taken together they make the iPhone Pro, which was already superlatively good, slightly better. The changes push the phone that one-inch extra towards the mythical point we call perfection.The changes also push the price of the phone an extra inch or two towards that point we call unaffordable. But overall, I believe, even at a price of Rs 179,900, the iPhone 18 Pro Max is worth it. Because there is no other phone that is in the same league, doing almost everything in the best possible manner.Looks the same, except that islandApple is not in the habit of changing the design of its devices every year. Last year the iPhone Pro got a fresh design. This year there is virtually no change. Or rather there are two minor changes. One, the island on the front screen has become smaller. Apple has achieved this by moving the infrared module, which is used for Face ID, under the display on the left edge of the phone. And two, the camera lenses protrude an extra 0.1mm. The Dynamic Island on the front has become smaller in the iPhone 18 Pro. Other than this, there are no design changes. In fact, if you put the iPhone 18 Pro Max into the iPhone 17 Pro Max case, it fits like a glove. Except that extra 0.1mm of the camera lenses. The smaller island on the front too is not that big of a deal in use. It is smaller by a teeny-tiny bit and in no way changes the functionality or user experience.There are a few other design changes though, but they are internal. The iPhone 18 Pro Max has a revamped and a larger vapour cooling chamber. It also has a slightly bigger battery. Both result in an increase in the weight and make the iPhone 18 Pro the heaviest of the Pro yet. Coupled with its large 6.9-inch screen, the weight of 249 grams means it is a phone that you feel in your hands. If you are not a fan of big phones, you should look at the iPhone 18 Pro and not the Max. While Apple keeps designs usually the same for a few years, it tends to change colours and finishes. In the case of the iPhone 18 Pro Max, you can choose from Burgundy, Glacier, Silver and Black. The one pictured here in this review is the Pro Max in Silver. It looks quite classy but also somewhat muted. Just like the Black variant. Burgundy is the hot colour this year, while the Glacier, in my opinion, is the sleeper hit.The build quality of the phone is classic Apple, which is solid and remarkably state-of-the-art. The 18 Pro Max looks and feels expensive when you pick it. The aluminium frame doesn’t have the jewel-like finish that steel used to have, but it is not shabby at all. The matte finish on the frame, as well as the silky smooth finish on the back glass will please even the most demanding users. On the front, Apple is using Ceramic Shield 2 which, as we know from the iPhone 17 Pro experience, almost makes a scratch guard unnecessary on this phone.Fastest chip ever in a phone, smarter SiriThe way it happens every year, this time too Apple has plonked a new, and arguably the world’s most advanced smartphone chip, into the iPhone Pro. A20 Pro is the name and blazing fast is its game. Pound for pound, the A20 Pro is the fastest consumer processor ever put in a computer or phone. Its Geekbench score in single-core, which is what matters more than the multi-core, is around 4700 points, even ahead of the most powerful computer chips.The big deal with the A20 Pro, however, is not just its CPU performance. Apple says the new chip, created using the most-advanced 2nm process by TSMC, also has a beefier neural engine for AI workloads and much faster graphics cores, again to handle and drive the user interface and various software features of the iPhone 18 Pro. The numbers are staggering. The A20 Pro has 50 per cent more memory bandwidth compared to the A19 Pro. It also has 40 per cent faster graphics cores and double the performance in AI workloads due to its beefier neural engine.Beyond the numbers, the performance of the phone in day-to-day use is similar to what you would get with the iPhone 17 Pro. That is because these are extremely fast phones, with chipsets and hardware that most users are barely utilising to full capacity. Scrolling through reels or swiping through camera roll is not going to put any burden on the iPhone 18 Pro Max, or for that matter on the iPhone 17 Pro.However, the fast hardware lets Apple and app developers offer more features and smoother performance in general. And that is what I see when I use the iPhone 18 Pro Max. Despite the demanding animations and effects, the Liquid Glass UI of the iOS 27 runs flawlessly on the iPhone 18 Pro Max. The fast hardware also lets Apple offer a smarter Siri on its latest iPhones. And it is indeed smarter. AI photo editing features like Cleanup and Reframe work as intended and no longer leave behind messy images. Siri is more responsive. The AI editing features in apps like Pages are snappier.Having said that, I am not a fan of the current status of AI on phones, whether it is Siri or Gemini on the Pixels. It feels cumbersome to use. Instead, the more useful AI on the phone has to be something like Meta Muse or ChatGPT Dots. It will require Apple, as well as other phone makers, to completely rethink the AI implementation on their devices. Maybe it will happen in the coming years.Overall, the iPhone 18 Pro Max is a fast phone with capital F. Users will find it nearly impossible to run into performance issues on this phone irrespective of what they are doing. That revamped and bigger vapour chamber too is helpful as the phone runs fairly cool, at least as cool as the iPhone 17 Pro Max despite packing in more performance under the hood. And significantly cooler than the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro. The better heat management means you can use the phone to click 100s of photos in a session even in hot Delhi outdoors. Or you can use it to record videos for prolonged duration, or play demanding games without interruption.While the performance is one key highlight of the iPhone 18 Pro Max, the rest of the phone too is as good as it gets. The screen is brilliant, vibrant and bright. Outdoors or indoors, it won’t make you squint your eyes. Though, I did notice that compared to the iPhone 17 Pro Max, the new phone sports a screen with cooler colour temperature. It’s not annoyingly cool, just like the previous one wasn’t annoyingly warm, but some users will notice it.The other key components all offer the best or near best experience. The speakers are the best you can get in a phone, sounding meaty and full. No other phone comes close. Network performance is good enough that it won’t give you a cause for worry, although 5G cellular connectivity nowadays is mostly terrible in India thanks to whatever Airtel, Jio and others have done or not done. On a very fast WiFi with the iPhone 18 Pro Max I can easily pull download speeds of around 300mbps and upload speed of around 900mbps! The phone is IP68 certified so you don’t have to worry if occasionally it gets wet.The only part that sees a little bit of performance hit is the speed of the Face ID. With its components moving under the display, in low light I found it to be a bit iffy compared to the Face ID on the previous iPhones. It is still blazing fast, and definitely better than what Android phones offer without their specialised hardware. But if earlier it would fail 5 times out of 100, with the phone asking you to use PIN, now it would be 7 times out of 100.The iPhone 18 Pro Max also charges faster. It reaches around 50 per cent in 15 minutes with a fast 60W charger. After that it slows down a little to save the battery health but still can finish juicing up in around 70 minutes, depending on the ambient temperature. The battery is bigger this time — around 5391 mAh in India. That is around 500 mAh more compared to the battery in the iPhone 17 Pro Max. In use, though, I found the battery life similar. That is around 18-20 hours, necessitating that you charge the phone once a day.New tricks in cameraOne of the biggest changes in the iPhone 18 Pro Max, although it is also incremental in the grand scheme of things, is in its camera system. Apple is using a new sensor — Sony IMX905 — for the main 48-megapixel. It is also using a new lens system on the main camera, the highlight of which is mechanical variable aperture as users can choose between F1.48 that is widest opening, F1.8, F2.8, and F4, the narrowest opening. About this in a minute.The rest of the camera system is similar to what we saw earlier. There are three rear cameras — the main 48-megapixel camera, the 48-megapixel ultrawide camera, and the 48-megapixel telephoto camera with 4X optical zoom, but with 8X optical quality zoom. On the front the phone has an 18-megapixel camera, which I last year called the best selfie camera you can get in a device. This year too it retains the crown in my opinion.As for how the camera system works, take a look at the 20 image samples below. Click on them to see in bigger size.As I used the iPhone 18 Pro Max camera over the last couple of weeks, here is my experience:— The iPhone 18 Pro Max is excellent with colour fidelity, dynamic range, level of details and even noise in shadows. It is a clear step up from the iPhone 17 Pro for discernible users and more so in low light. The main camera in the iPhone 18 Pro comes with a new sensor which is a clear upgrade over the previous sensor. For example, in this photo, see how well the camera has captured the light in the girl's eyes. — All three rear cameras offer improved performance. But the one that I was most pleased with was the 8X performance of the telephoto camera. It might not be truly optical, because it is a 2X crop of the 4X photo, plus some processing magic. But it is better than what some other phones offer with their “true” optical zoom cameras.— The camera app gets some new tricks, including Pro controls and film simulations. These are nice to have features and in the right hands will generate beautiful photos. But most iPhone users will stick to the regular controls, and it will be good enough for their use.— The mechanical aperture is a very nice feature and I believe more phones will come with it. When you change the aperture on the main camera, the lens opening changes mechanical. It is very cool to see. Ability to change apertures, particularly to F4, also means you can get sharper photos because you can negate the effect of depth of field. This would be handy when you are clicking photos of food, or smaller items. The F4 also lets you click photos with starbursts when you are shooting a scene with small lights in it. Despite its F4 value, because of some cool tricks and sensor size, the effect is closer to what you would get at F16 in a DSLR camera. Though, you get only six rays, unlike 14 to18 that good lenses can produce. Still very cool! The variable aperture in the iPhone 18 Pro camera let's you click starbursts in low-light photos using F4 aperture. — The video recording features of the iPhone remain best-in-class. This is the phone for you if you are doing any serious video work and don’t have access to a proper full-frame camera.Overall, I find the iPhone 18 Pro Max has a superior camera system compared to the previous iPhones. I feel for photography it still doesn’t fully match the camera systems in some exotic Android phones, such as the Vivo X300 Ultra and the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, but it is fairly close. The rest of improvements I suppose can only come from a bigger sensor, like what some of the Androids have, and a more exotic lens system that can handle flares and reflections better.iPhone 18 Pro Max worth buying?I know, the price is fire. But then let’s put that in context. The prices of all smartphones this year are on fire. The RAM and component crisis means you will be paying more for your phone this year. Given this context, the price of Rs 179,900 for the iPhone 18 Pro Max is not unreasonably expensive. Sure it is getting close to the unaffordable territory for many iPhone users in India, but you do get your money’s worth.In nutshell, the iPhone 18 Pro Max is the most well-rounded phone you can buy this year. It does everything almost extraordinarily well. The other phones are one or two trick ponies. This one is jack of all as well as master of all. And one hundred per cent paisa wasool despite its high price.- Ends