iPhone 17 Pro Max had almost 1 month to be able to call itself the best Pro Max! The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max may be an obscure namestealer, but it’s about as serious as you can get on the specs front.
What immediately catches the eye is the rear screen, so let’s talk about that. It’s a top-of-the-line 120 Hz LTPO OLED panel with a peak brightness of 3,500 nits.
On the software side, the rear screen isn’t very useful. It technically supports third-party apps, but only Chinese apps are allowed for now. Hardly surprising, since the phone is only available in China and the global version is still a few months away.
The best thing about the rear screen is the viewfinder for the triple camera system. That opens up the main camera selfie and ultrawide selfie, which we loved back in the day on the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra.
The main-cam selfie for everyone
Like the iPhone, the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max has a flat glass front and a 6.9-inch 120Hz display. You get a slightly more realistic screen on the Xiaomi thanks to the face-scanning hardware and the lack of a pill-shaped notch.
Xiaomi’s display is excellent, though it lacks the anti-reflective glass on top.
The software is HyperOS 3, which is based on Android 16. Just like Vivo, Xiaomi has gone ahead with a new design that is similar to iOS 26. You get a very colorful interface with large UI elements with transparent effects here and there.
We received our Xiaomi 17 Pro Max from a store in China. The phone comes with a simple plastic case, a USB-A to USB-C cable and a 100W charger. There’s no word on when the 17 series will make its global debut from Xiaomi, but while we’re still waiting we’ll want to test this one out!
