The Fake iPhone 17 Pro Max Is Here, And It’s Shockingly Convincing..
Every year these fake iPhones somehow manage to excite me and terrify me at the same time. The iPhone 17 series looks very different from previous models, so I had to see how fast the counterfeit world kept up.
Let me walk you through everything from the unboxing to the teardown. Spoiler alert, this one surprised me.
The Box Looks Better Than Ever
We start with the classic blue box that these fakes love to use. As always, the sellers went all out with the packaging.
Inside that box is a fake Apple bag and then another box with the Apple logo. The first thing that caught my attention is how accurate the texture is and yes, once again, the box is wildly convincing.
Apple uses a raised finish on their boxes and these guys copied it almost exactly. Even the color tone is close. The fake box is a slightly darker off white, while the real one is pure white.
Flipping to the back, things get even scarier. No spelling mistakes. Realistic symbols. Hearing aid compatibility info and even French text for the Canadian market. They targeted my region and got it right, which is unsettling.
So is it perfect? Not quite. A black light test gives it away instantly. Real iPhone boxes glow with the word “iPhone” and a QR code. The fake one has none of that. For now, at least.
They did print a serial number and an IMEI, and unfortunately, both check out as real online. So if you plan to verify authenticity using those numbers alone, you are out of luck.
First Look at the Fake iPhone 17 Pro Max
Peeling off the paper seal was surprisingly satisfying. And the first impression of the phone itself is that it looks good, like really good.
The weight feels accurate.
The color looks right.
The camera layout matches the real thing.
They even made the sides feel like aluminum.
But then the details start to fall apart. At the bottom, there are two fake pentalobe screws that are literally just etched shapes. No real screws. That one made me laugh.
Up top, I noticed a scratch which is not great. And one of the rear cameras looks suspicious compared to the others. Usually the lowest quality lens is the only real one. The rest tend to be decorative.
What Is Inside the Fake iPhone 17 Pro Max?
Now let’s tear this thing down. First, heat the back glass with a heat gun. Then, using a suction cup and a pry tool, the back glass came off. And yes, it is real glass. I learned that the hard way when it cracked during the teardown.
Inside, there are no MagSafe magnets and no wireless charging coil. Pretty typical for a fake. But what shocked me was the battery. It is a 5300 mAh pack, which is actually larger than the real iPhone 17 Pro Max. Will it last longer? Absolutely not. But seeing a number that big is wild.
The internal layout is completely redesigned this year. Everything is shoved to the top of the phone. It has a removable battery connector, removable front camera and even a proper sub board. There is even an SD card slot. Apple users everywhere just gasped.
As weird as it is, the internals are way closer to a real phone than previous fakes. They clearly stepped up their game.
The Display and Dynamic Island
Removing the screen protector revealed a surprisingly decent display for a fake. The bezels are thick and the chin is massive, but the Dynamic Island cutout looks convincing from a distance.
Once turned on, the illusion breaks fast. The Apple logo shows up, but the screen is clearly LCD. And then you see the chin in full brightness and the dream is over. If you ever buy an iPhone with a chin when it is not supposed to have one, return it immediately.
Turning It On: Fake iOS 26
As soon as the fake setup menu appears, it becomes obvious that this thing is running Android. The animations look better than last year’s fakes, but issues show up fast. Even the Wi Fi screen looks different.
They somehow included the liquid glass welcome animation from iOS 26. It is not perfect, but the fact that they attempted it is wild.
Once inside the system, the control center and notification shade give it away instantly. And interestingly, there is no Play Store icon. Instead, they included a fake App Store that barely works. You can install apps by using the Play Store website, but nothing here is seamless.
The Real Specs
Using CPU X, I confirmed the real internals:
MediaTek 6765 processor
6 GB of RAM
128 GB of storage
And as soon as I tested it with the Fake Device Tester app, it straight up told me it was fake. Honestly, no surprise. It’s stuck on Android OS 10 from way back in 2019.
So if you were wondering how powerful the fake iPhone 17 Pro Max is, the answer is it’s underwhelming. Benchmarks testing with Geekbench 6 and 3D Mark wouldn’t even run. Even playing Genshin Impact is a struggle on this device.
And no, I will not give you a link to buy this thing. You do not need it.
Camera Test
Interestingly enough, the camera app actually looks the way it should in iOS 26.
And the new camera control button? It works. The slide-to-zoom is slow, but it does slide and it does zoom. You can switch camera modes too, even though most of them don’t really do anything.
Once you step outside, things fall apart fast. Colors look way more dull than real life, the autofocus hunts constantly, and video ends up looking like it was recorded on a budget phone from a decade ago.
Also, the front camera somehow makes me look like a retro VHS version of myself. Next to the real iPhone 17 Pro Max, the difference isn’t even close.
Final Thoughts
This is easily the most convincing fake iPhone I have ever tested. The box fooled me for a second. The build quality is better. The internal design is cleaner. And the software copies just enough to trick someone who is not paying close attention.
But at the end of the day, it is still a scam device. Weak specs, bad cameras, low storage, outdated Android and zero long term reliability. These fake phones only exist so someone can take your money.
If it looks too good to be true, it probably has fake pentalobe screws on the bottom.
See you in the next article!
