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If you were going to build the perfect phone, where would you start?

It's a hard one, isn't it? Everyone has different priorities.

For some people, it's all about the camera. If you can't snap a crystal-clear pic of your kid catching their first wave while you're still dry and warm on the beach, the phone is not the one.

Actually, speaking of waves and sand and sun, many of you want a phone that can take a beating, preferably without heating. A water-tight device with no cracks or scratches? Yes, please.

Other people prioritise more technical things, like processing power and performance. Can your phone edit high definition video AND play the latest AAA-rated mobile games? No? Then go and find me one that can.

Then there are the users who just want decent battery life. So I forgot to put it on to charge last night. Why should that be such a big deal?

Tick all those boxes off and you're really starting to get somewhere.

The Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max might already be there.

By all reports, consumers are loving this year's selection of new iPhones and Apple is already setting sales records all over again.

I put part of this early success down to the fact there's no doubt the 2025 iPhone range is different to its predecessors and what's more, this year, each model is quite distinct from each other too. (Apart from the 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, of course - they're essentially the same phone just in two different sizes)

I was blown away by the performance and sheer slimness of the new iPhone Air. Even my battery life worries were somewhat unfounded - although, as expected, the camera proved to be slightly limited.

Not so much with the base-model iPhone 17 - here the camera array was a big upgrade on previous "vanilla" iPhones. The new A19 chip never raised a sweat and battery life swooped effortlessly into day 2.

So that leaves me with the iPhone 17 Pro Max, wondering how much more could it really have to offer, to justify the significant jump in asking price.

Well, let's just say, it offers a lot.

We'll circle back to the way the new Pro Max feels and looks shortly because the very first thing that really made this handset stand out to me was how fluid and silky smooth it is to use. The A19 Pro chip is, as you'd expect, Apple's fastest and most powerful iPhone chip yet. The Pro version offers more graphics grunt than the A19 in the base model and there's even an extra core in the GPU when compared to the iPhone Air. There's honestly a tangible difference in the way the 17 Pro Max responds to the lightest of touches. Scrolling is lightening-quick. On-screen edits are just that much more accurate. Even AI responses seem to work more promptly.

Speaking of "Apple Intelligence" - it's worth remembering the 16-core Neural Engine does much of its work on-device - meaning both faster response times and better data security.

Not only does all this happen more efficiently than ever, the 17 Pro Max is more likely to keep working at its maximum potential thanks to an entirely new heat management philosophy. This year, Apple has opted for a forged aluminium unibody, forgoing the previous titanium casing. The aerospace-grade 7000-series aluminium is better at dissipating heat and combines with an all-new vapour chamber to achieve the best thermal stability yet. In short, I don't think I've felt this phone get warm, let alone hot.

I'm also about to write something I never thought I would; this iPhone's battery life has got to be one of the best of any phone available - certainly for a handset with this many high-performance, high-drain features. I know I keep going on about how long my day is; during the week I get up at 2:50am for my breakfast radio show and don't go back to bed until around 8:30 each night. The only reason I make that humble brag is to compare how much battery is left on my phone when I pop it on my bedside MagSafe charger.

With the iPhone 17 Pro Max, it invariably shows more than 70%, occasionally even into the 80s. For many years, iPhones were the laughing stock when it came to battery life. Clearly, that reputation no longer applies.

This is also a difficult device to break. The 6.9-inch Super Retina XDR display looks wonderful - that's no surprise. It's now protected by Ceramic Shield 2, which Apple claims is tougher than any other smartphone glass. Not only is it more scratch resistant, it also reduces reflections and unwanted glare. The 3000nits of peak brightness adds to the equation, resulting in one of the best displays for outdoor use I've ever encountered.

The camera system has also been totally reimagined, with not one, not two, but THREE 48MP Fusion Cameras on the back and the same, revolutionary selfie-cam we've seen introduced on the iPhone 17 and iPhone Air. The performance of that triple-sensor primary array is shockingly good. I've been using this phone a while now and I've barely scratched the surface of what those cameras can do. No matter the lighting conditions, or how far away the subject is, there are just so many options to enable you to shoot pro-level pictures and video.

With an intimidating range of focal lengths to choose from, Apple likes to describe it as having "8 pro lenses in your pocket" and after trying them out, I'm not even sure this is over-hyping it. Your photos are captured at 24MP by default - pretty high-res. But there's nothing stopping you editing massive 48MP RAW files. In fact, this camera is so groundbreaking, Apple has come up with a whole new video codec; ProRes RAW.

Luckily for me, the Camera app in iOS 26 tucks all these expert settings away - unless you desperately want to tweak them yourself - and quite intuitively juggles things around for you. (This is the kind of AI I appreciate the most - the stuff that happens without you asking it to)

As I've already discussed in my iPhone Air and iPhone 17 reviews, the industry-shaking square, 18MP Centre Stage front camera can also be set to auto - intelligently zooming in and out and even changing aspect ratios to optimise your selfie game to a whole new level.

I could go on forever. Features like Dual Capture and the upgraded digital stabilisation are further evidence the 17 Pro Max's camera performance probably deserves a review all of its own.

And this is the problem generally, with the top-of-the-line iPhone in any given year; it's so good, and so feature packed, you'd need a weekly serial of reviews to thoroughly cover it all off.

Sounds perfect, right?

Well, not quite.

It's big. Well, huge actually. I mean, if you're buying the Max it's because you want a big screen anyway. I get that. But it really is quite big and bulky and heavy and then there's the "plateau." So the plateau is a new design element the base-model iPhone 17 doesn't share, although the iPhone Air does. Sort of. On the Air, this new body-wide camera bump doesn't seem anywhere near as pronounced as it is on the 17 Pro or Pro Max. Ironically, the Air's plateau actually protrudes further from the back panel but it's not as tall and the phone itself is obviously much thinner. Much, much, much thinner.

The over-thick design of the 17 Pro Max is all about functionality, of course. I get if you want the longest optical zoom of any iPhone camera, an effective vapour cooling system and an unheard-of extension of battery life, you've got to physically put all that somewhere. But I'll just say you definitely know when this thing is in your pocket. And if you add the horrendously thick and unglamorous MagSafe case Apple sent with my review unit to the ensemble, you might not even fit it in your pocket. Luckily, there are other cases out there and as we've already pointed out, as phones go, this one can take a few knocks even without a case.

Not sure if you'd want to risk it though. The 17 Pro Max starts at NZ$2,549.00 and if you're planning to edit some of those huge ProRes RAW video files, you'll need to consider the 1TB model at least - or even 2TB at NZ$4,149.00.

For that kind of money, you'd think you'd have more colour options than just Silver, Deep Blue or Cosmic Orange.

However, as usual for iPhone Pro, it's what's on the inside that really counts. And when it comes to what's inside this year's version, there's never been a phone quite like it.