Apple added €150 to the iPhone 18 Pro Max. I Returned It.

After two weeks as my main phone, the iPhone 18 Pro Max had the better battery and the better camera. Going back to my 17 Pro Max still felt like losing nothing.

I sent the iPhone 18 Pro Max back, and the odd part is that I didn’t send back a bad phone.

Far from it. The battery lasted longer than I expected. The camera is excellent, and it did everything I asked of it. What it couldn’t give me was a reason to keep it because my iPhone 17 Pro Max already did almost all of that just as well.

So the question became plain. Why spend this much to swap one phone for a near copy of it, and what finally pushed me to return it?

The iPhone 18 Pro Max in burgundy next to the 17 Pro Max. Image by the author.

I bought it on release day, on pre-order, so I had it from Day one. This time I set it up from scratch, like someone moving to a new phone for the first time, because I didn’t want to be the guy going from the 17 to the 18. I put my 17 Pro Max aside and used the 18 Pro Max for about two weeks.

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