With the iPhone 17 Pro Max, Apple finally has a handset that can compete with Android on pure specs

In the ongoing rivalry between iPhone and Android, one thing that Android fans have always been able to point to is raw specs – sure, Apple^[1]’s phones tend to win when it comes to the chipset performance, but in most other areas – at least when it comes to numbers – the best Android phones^[2] have the edge.

We’re talking things like RAM, battery capacity, camera specs, and refresh rates. But with the iPhone 17^[3] series – and in particular the iPhone 17 Pro Max^[4] – Apple seems to have finally caught up.

The whole iPhone 17 line finally has 120Hz refresh rates, removing one of the criticisms that it was easy to level at Apple in the past, but the iPhone 17 Pro Max can match up to Android when it comes to RAM, battery, and camera zoom too.

A 4GB boost

For RAM, Apple never reveals figures, but MacRumors^[5] has found out how much each model has through the latest version of Apple’s developer tool Xcode 26, and you’re getting 12GB here (and in the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air^[6]).

That’s up from 8GB in the iPhone 16 Pro^[7] series, and is enough to match the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra^[8] – in most regions at least, though a few countries do get a configuration with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

On which note though, Apple actually goes beyond most Android phones when it comes to storage, as the iPhone 17 Pro Max comes with up to 2TB.

Back on the RAM though, and the iPhone 17 Pro series can also match most configurations of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7^[9] and some configurations of the OnePlus 13^[10], as you can see in the chart below.

Among the best Android phones arguably the only ones that it can’t quite match up to are the Google Pixel 10 Pro^[11] and the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL^[12] – both of which come with 16GB of RAM in all configurations, but these also have a far weaker chipset and less storage, topping out at 1TB.

A bigger battery and better zoom

Then there’s the iPhone 17 Pro Max’s battery capacity. While 5,000mAh has been a fairly standard capacity for large Android phones for years now, Apple has stubbornly stayed under that figure. No longer though, with the iPhone 17 Pro Max reaching 5,088mAh – up from 4,685mAh in the iPhone 16 Pro Max^[13].

Now, there’s a slight caveat here in that only the eSIM-only version of the iPhone 17 Pro Max has this large a battery, with other versions having a 4,832mAh one. But with all models sold in the US being the eSIM-only version, that’s still a lot of iPhones with a battery of over 5,000mAh.

This again compares well to Android. As you can see in the chart above, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra^[14] has a smaller 5,000mAh battery, as does the 4,400mAh Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7^[15], and while the likes of the 5,200mAh Google Pixel 10 Pro XL^[16] and the massive 6,000mAh OnePlus 13^[17] do have it beat, it’s at least in the conversation now.

Finally, there’s the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max’s cameras, and in particular the 48MP telephoto camera. This has far more megapixels than the 12MP option on the iPhone 16 Pro series, and those extra megapixels allow for longer distance zoom too, with the iPhone 17 Pro series capable of 4x optical zoom at 48MP or 8x optical-quality zoom at 12MP, where the iPhone 16 Pro series tops out at 5x without losing quality.

This again puts these phones broadly in line with the best Android rivals – the Galaxy S25 Ultra can do 3x and 5x optical zoom, plus 10x optical quality through a sensor crop (similar to how Apple is reaching 8x zoom here). The Pixel 10 Pro XL can do similar, and the OnePlus 13 and Samsung^[18] Galaxy Z Fold 7 can manage just 3x zoom.

So the iPhone 17 Pro Max still isn’t quite the longest range here, but it’s no longer far off, and it has some Android rivals beat.

Specs don’t tell the whole story

Of course, there are still areas with room for improvement, as Android fans will probably be quick to point out – as noted, these iPhone 17 Pro Max specs might now match some of the best Android phones, but they’re still beaten in some cases, and Apple could certainly still work on charging speeds.

But the difference in most areas now between this and any given top Android handset is negligible – at least on paper.

In practice, Apple already led in some areas, with for example the Pro Max phones tending to have better battery life than most Android handsets despite having smaller batteries – so we expect great things from the big battery in the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

On the other hand, there’s no guarantee that the changes Apple has made to the cameras, the RAM amounts, and other aspects of the iPhone 17 series will lead to substantial improvements in practice.

So there’s sure to still be plenty of debate and competition between these iPhones and the best Android phones, it just – hopefully – won’t devolve so much into a discussion of which has bigger numbers.

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