The iPhone 17 Pro Max is giving the Pixel 10 Pro XL no time to spread its wings. It’s going to be a heated competition!
Apple just held its iPhone 17 event and yes, the huge camera bar redesign is real. Whether it’s for thermal management reasons, or whether it’s just to appear different — we can’t know for sure just yet. But that camera bar — which Apple calls camera plateau — sure looks familiar.
Oh yeah, the Pixel phones have had one since the Pixel 6. Now, the Pixel 10 Pro XL has a pill-shaped horizontal module there, but it’s just hard not to draw comparisons, especially since there isn’t anthing else like that on the market. Meaning — a horizontal camera bar that reaches across from one end of the phone to the other.
But phones are more than just looks. Apple has a new A19 Pro chip, while Google finally has a fully home-designed Tensor G5. Apple announced a camera upgrade, but Google hasn’t been twiddling its thumbs, too! And AI. let’s not talk about the uncomfortable stuff just yet.
With all the heavy hitters now announced and clearly out there, which one’s looking like a winner?
iPhone 17 Pro Max vs Pixel 10 Pro XL differences:
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The back of the iPhone has a new twist. Instead of a full glass slab, the iPhone 17 Pro models now use window of Ceramic Shield on the rear. But there’s now more metal back there, too — supposedly because the thermal management has been rethought and redone. The point is for heat to dissipate in spots of the aluminum frame that you won’t be holding. Oh yes, aluminum — the titanium experiment is done. Apple didn’t say why, only praised aluminum for being better at heat dissipation.
On the front, the iPhone 17 Pro Max introduces Ceramic Shield 2 — Apple’s next-generation display glass. According to the company, it’s three times more scratch resistant than the original Ceramic Shield we’ve had since the iPhone 12 (with a minor revision in the iPhone 16, but no proper generational numeral there). There’s also a new seven-layer anti-glare coating, which should make outdoor visibility noticeably better. Or so we hope. It’s one of those upgrades that’s easy to overlook on paper, but could make a big difference in daily use, at least that’s what it did with the Galaxy S24 Ultra and S25 Ultra.
In the other corner, the Pixel 10 Pro XL is scoring a familiar design language, one that doesn’t stray away from the design chops of previous Pixels and looks immediately familiar to anyone who has used or seen a Pixel device in the past few years.
We have a flat aluminum frame, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 up front and in the rear, and the oversized camera strip. No extra fluff, just the core basics that all Pixel phones have delivered for a long time.
Size-wise, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is very slightly thicker, with a projected thickness of 8.75 mm, while the Pixel 10 Pro XL measures at around 8.5 mm, but it will be challenging to notice this minor difference in real life, that’s for sure.
Yet, the Pixel 10 Pro XL is heavier at 232 gr, and that should be noticeable over the iPhone’s 206 gr.
The iPhone will continue to be the device with a more varied button lineup. The Action Button and the Camera Controls key are still here, unchanged, while the Pixel 10 Pro XL has no fun extra buttons apart from the standard volume/power button combo.
The Pixel 10 Pro XL is available in Moonstone, Obsidian, Porcelain, and Jade colors. Meanwhile, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is coming in a surprisingly limited selection – Silver, Deep Blue, and Cosmic Orange. No black, not even Space Gray!
Display Differences
The iPhone 17 Pro Max is back at it with a 6.9-inch Super Retina XDR screen with thin bezels, 1-120 Hz ProMotion refresh rate and a higher peak brightness of 3,000 nits. Apple also talked about a new 7-layer anti-reflection coating that’s applied over that Ceramic Shield 2 glass, which sounds like it will be a very good upgrade to viewability.
