The iPhone 17 Pro Max was only 1 month old to be able to call itself the best Pro Max around! The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max may be a corny name stealer, 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 the absolute top notch – a 120Hz 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 ones are allowed right now. Hardly surprising, since the phone is only available in China and the global version is still two months away.
What improves the rear screen for the triple camera system is a viewfinder. This opens up main-camera selfies and ultra-wide selfies, which we loved on the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra back in the day.
Main cam selfies for everyone
Like the iPhone, the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max packs a flat glass front and a 6.9-inch 120Hz display. You get a slightly more original screen on the Xiaomi thanks to the face-scanning hardware and the lack of a pill-sized notch.
The Xiaomi’s display is excellent, although it lacks the anti-reflective glass on top.
The software is HyperX 3, which is based on Android 16. Like Vivo, Xiaomi has gone with a new design that’s a bit more like iOS 26. You get a very colorful interface with large UI elements with transparent effects here and there.
We got 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 from Xiaomi on when the 17 Series will make its global debut, but we’d love to test it out in full while we wait!
