Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max review

Display

The iPhone 16 Pro Max features the largest display on an iPhone so far - a 6.9-inch LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED with ProMotion. The screen has a resolution of 2868 x 1320 pixels (that's 460ppi, the same pixel density across all modern iPhones).

The display is protected by the third generation Ceramic Shield glass, and it has a pill-shaped cutout known as the Dynamic Island.

The display supports 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10 and Dolby Vision standards. True Tone adjustment is also available.

Apple advertises the display as capable of 1,000 nit of maximum auto brightness and up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness.

Our display test confirms those numbers - we measured 900 nits of manual maximum brightness and 1,796 nits of maximum automatic brightness - quite a solid number. Reducing the white square to just 10% of the screen gave us 2,456 nits.

The minimum brightness we measured at white color was 1.1nit.

The screen supports 120Hz refresh rate, something Apple calls ProMotion. You have no control over the refresh rate. It is a dynamic one, and it should drop down to 1Hz for static pictures and always-on/standby modes.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision and it is recognized by all known apps as such. Apple does its HDR video playback in a very flexible way since it's not necessary for the content to be displayed fullscreen for HDR to work. It can just work on the portion of the display that has the video playing, which is a bit of a surreal experience the first time you encounter it.

There are a handful of smartphones that deserve praise for their haptics, and the iPhones are in this exclusive club. The Taptic engine provides accurate and pleasant feedback, and we loved it.

Battery life

The iPhone 16 Pro Max is powered by a 4,685mAh battery, 240mAh more than the one inside the 15 Pro Max. The new flagship model scored an outstanding Active Use Time of 17 hours and 18 mins. While the video streaming and gaming times are on par with the ones we got from the iPhone 15 Pro Max, the call and web times are now better and thus the higher Active Use Time.

Charging speed

The iPhone 16 Pro Max supports fast wired charging, though Apple never reveals the maximum power rating. The company quotes an expected 50% charge in 30 mins with a compatible 20W charger.

Some initial rumors suggested the iPhone 16 series would support 45W wired charging, but that came out false. In our testing, the iPhone 16 Pro Max maxes out at around 30W.

There is also support for fast wireless charging for up to 25W via the new MagSafe charger when plugged into a 30W+ power adapter. If you have a compatible Qi2 charger, then the iPhone 16 Pro Max will max out at 15W.

We carried our test with a 45W PD charger and we clocked 57% of charge in 15 mins and 46% of charge in 30 mins. An hour on that charger refilled 80% of the battery.

The rest 20% took almost an hour, too, as a full charge required 1 hour and 57 minutes. The times are in line with the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Apple iOS 18 supports Battery Health option, which should prolong its lifespan even more - you can set the charge limit between 80% and 100%. You can also see the cycle count and battery health in the battery settings.

Reverse wired charging is available on the iPhone 16 Pro Max, it usually maxes out at about 5W.

Speakers

The Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max has a typical hybrid stereo speaker setup where the earpiece is one of the speakers. The other speaker is at the bottom of the phone, next to the USB-C port.

Both speakers sound incredibly well in real life with deep and balanced audio.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max has the same speaker system like on the 15 Pro Max, and it is not surprising it offers a Very Good loudness (a whisker shy of Excellent), and an impressively rich sound output across the board - bass, vocals, treble.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.