The iPhone 18 Pro Max is Apple’s largest and heaviest Pro iPhone, featuring the biggest battery upgrade yet, a 6.9in screen, the A20 Pro chip and a new variable aperture camera. It costs from £1,299 (€1,599/$1,299/A$2,299), making it no longer Apple’s most expensive phone – that title belongs to the £2,000 iPhone Duo – but it still commands a similarly large price tag.
Design and screen
The 18 Pro Max follows the familiar Pro Max formula: it takes everything that’s great about the 18 Pro and supersizes the screen and battery. It has a first-class camera, the fastest performance and very long software support. But it is hard to use with one hand and pretty big to fit in a pocket. It weighs 249g, which is really heavy for even a very large smartphone – 23g more than its nearest rival, 38g more than its smaller sibling and heavier still than folding phones. It made my hand hurt after 10 days of use and is a two-handed phone needing some sort of handle or strap.
The 6.9in screen is a joy to behold. It is super bright, crisp and smooth, with a very effective anti-glare coating, making it great for films, TV or games. It offers a similar level of real estate for video to most folding phones. It also has the new, smaller camera cut out and bigger dynamic island of the regular 18 Pro.
Performance and battery
The 18 Pro Max has the same new A20 Pro chip as the 18 Pro, one of the fastest chips you can get in a phone, plus a redesigned cooling system that helps maintain peak performance during long gaming sessions. It has the longest battery of any iPhone, lasting almost three days of light usage between charges, with seven hours of active screen use for apps, browsing, messaging and photos. That is about four hours longer than its predecessor and almost a day longer than the 18 Pro. Even with heavy use, the 18 Pro Max managed to end the day with about 50% left, meaning most people will only need to charge it every second or third day.
The phone runs iOS 27, the same software as smartphones from the iPhone 11 onwards. The new software speeds up app launches and other parts of the system, refines the Liquid Glass redesign from last year and revamps Apple’s AI tools. The new Siri AI chatbot is a significant step in the right direction, able to better understand you and perform tasks. It has its own app to review previous conversations and can see what is on your screen or through the camera. It can also suggest data from your various Apple apps, similar to Google’s proactive tools on the Pixels. But it relies on you using messages and mail, rather than third-party apps such as WhatsApp or Gmail.
Camera and sustainability
The 18 Pro Max has the same camera system as its smaller sibling, including an 18-megapixel centre stage selfie camera in the screen and three 48MP cameras on the back. The three rear cameras are some of the best on a phone, including a 4x/8x optical zoom and 0.5x ultra wide. The big addition is a variable aperture on the main camera, allowing it to open wider than other iPhones for better low light performance or to narrow to preserve depth of field. It also allows additional creative photography possibilities, including shooting starbursts. The phone also has new AI-powered focus tracking, improved Photographic Styles, Apple’s new digital negative feature and automatic cinematic mode for video.
The battery will last in excess of 1,000 full-charge cycles with at least 80% of its original capacity, and it can be replaced for £119. Out-of-warranty screen repairs cost £389. The specialists iFixit awarded the phone seven out of 10 for repairability. It contains more than 40% recycled material, and Apple offers trade-in and free recycling schemes, including for non-Apple products.
Price and verdict
The iPhone 18 Pro Max costs from £1,299 (€1,599/$1,299/A$2,299). For comparison, the iPhone 17 costs £899, the iPhone Air £1,099 and the iPhone 18 Pro £1,199; the Google Pixel 11 Pro costs £1,279 and the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra £1,359.
The iPhone 18 Pro Max is Apple’s biggest, longest-lasting and most expensive slab phone for 2026. It takes what is great about the regular 18 Pro and supersizes the screen and battery, giving it a run time of up to three days, which is a good half day more than its smaller sibling. That places it shoulder to shoulder with some of the longest-lasting phones available on any platform. But similar to superphones from Google and Samsung, the 18 Pro Max is too big to use one-handed and tricky to pocket. It is also too heavy and made my hand hurt without using a Popsocket or a similar handle attached to it.
Otherwise, it is a fairly iterative upgrade on the 17 Pro Max, with the same design and feel. The screen is still one of the very best on a phone, and the improved dynamic island is a useful upgrade. The A20 Pro chip is seriously quick, the cameras are some of the best you can get on a phone, and the variable aperture on the main camera opens up some new creative opportunities, even if its impact on image quality is fairly minor. Pros: fabulous 6.9in screen, better dynamic island, very long battery life, great cameras with variable aperture, USB-C, top performance, long software support, Face ID, better AI. Cons: very expensive, very heavy, hard to use one-handed, small upgrade on last year, AI tools still lag top competitors.
