The first reviews of Apple's flagship iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are in, and all of of them praise the battery life, and vibrant colors.

With the iPhone 17 Pro Max going backordered almost instantly as preorders opened — and Chinese buyers breaking records for it — it doesn't seem like a lot of people are waiting for reviews. But as the first ones come in, they are mostly all validating the hype.

The Verge is about the only one that shrugs, calling it "a bold redesign but a basic upgrade." It also recommends that "most people should buy the regular iPhone 17."

Underappreciated

Every other review so far is a fairly unqualified praising one, while some then defend that by saying the iPhone 17 Pro deserves more attention that it's had. "In a major year for the iPhone,"writes Robert Leedham for GQ, "the 17 Pro models feel like they've gone unnoticed at first."

"Given a little more time in the sun, I expect they'll get they'll get their flowers soon enough," he continued. "[Anyone] making the upgrade is going to feel these benefits straight from their unboxing."

"This is a seriously capable smartphone that's here for the long-haul, and the most complete vision for an iPhone Pro yet," concludes Leedham. "This is a quietly impressive update for what's still the best pound-for-pound smartphone out there.

Bold and aggressive

In CNET's video review, Patrick Holland says that compared to the new iPhone Air, "the iPhone 17 Pro Max is loud, bold, aggressive, and powerful."

"In fact, if we're comparing it to Terminators, the iPhone Air would be the T1000 from Terminator 2," he says, perhaps the first iPhone reviewer ever to quite make this comparison, "and the iPhone 17 Pro would be the musclebound T800."

Holland does note that the new Pro models are a little heavier than last year's iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. That point crops up in most reviews, and the fact that the iPhone 17 Pro Max is a little thicker than its predecessor is sometimes described as being un-Apple like.

But alongside every mention of that thickness comes praise for the battery life. Marques Brownlee summarized it by saying these are the "most maximalist iPhones ever."

Sum of the parts

For all the praise, there is still that recurring sense of the new Pro models being better than expected. For Wired, writer Julian Chokkattu even says that "the specs might not read as revolutionary on paper... there's no singular feature that'll make you go 'wow!'"

"But when you actually experience these individual improvements, they combine to become more than the sum of their parts," he continues.

For full-on high volume praise, though, Britain's tabloid The Sun goes to 11.

"This is a phenomenal mobile... it is more beautiful.... it is exceedingly powerful," enthuses Sean Keach. "iPhone 17 Pro Max is genuinely an incredible piece of technology. It is the modern smartphone distilled into as pure and powerful a machine as is possible."

And it's orange.

"Importantly, it's not a garish orange," wrote Keach. "It's classy — almost tan in some lights, and certainly never gaudy."

Wired writer was similarly taken with the color, yet also thwarted. "The Cosmic Orange color was calling my name," wrote Julian Chokkattu, "but alas, Apple provided me with the Silver iPhone 17 Pro Max and Deep Blue iPhone 17 Pro."

If your heart bleeds for him, you can still preorder the iPhone 17 Pro Max in orange, or a better color.