OnePlus 10 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro Max: Which phone wins?

In the match-up of OnePlus 10 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro Max, we see the current king of the best phones go up against the latest upstart among flagships. It's a tough fight ahead for the OnePlus phone, but it's definitely got what it takes.

The OnePlus 10 Pro offers similar capabilities to the iPhone 13 Pro Max. Both phones have the same size displays, the same refresh rate and the same number of cameras. However, the iPhone excels at computing power, 5G compatibility and future software updates, while the OnePlus offers superior charging speed and value for the money.

To figure out which phone is best, we've broken down their key features below and assigned some scores. If your new phone shortlist is down to just these two devices, let us help you break the stalemate with this OnePlus 10 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro Max face-off.

OnePlus 10 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro Max: Specs

OnePlus 10 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro Max: Price and availability

You can buy either phone right now from a variety of retailers and carriers. The OnePlus 10 Pro's starts at $899/£799, while the iPhone 13 Pro Max starts at $1,099/£1,049, immediately positioning the OnePlus as the better value.

Both phones start with 128GB of storage. You can also get 256GB versions of each, the OnePlus costing £899 (there's no U.S. availability for this model yet) and the iPhone costing $1,199/£1,149. If you want even more storage, Apple also offers a $1,399/£1,349 512GB model and a $1,599/£1,549 1TB model.

Offering higher storage capacity versions may be attractive to some users, but in terms of value, the OnePlus 10 Pro wins easily.

Winner: OnePlus 10 Pro

OnePlus 10 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro Max: Design

OnePlus and Apple have opted for two different but still attractive designs for their phones. The iPhone 13 Pro Max is similar to the iPhone 12 Pro Max with its flat-sided design, but features a smaller Face ID notch. and a larger rear camera bump. Your color choices, which all have a metallic matte effect, are Sierra Blue, Gold, Silver and Graphite, with Alpine Green having also just been added.

The OnePlus 10 Pro also bears some resemblance to the last-gen OnePlus 9 Pro, but only from the front. It retains the curved display with a punch-hole notch for the selfie camera, while the back camera module has changed from a simple color-matched rectangle to a shiny ceramic block that curves into the phone's side rail. You get just two color options for this phone: Emerald Forest (green) or Volcanic Black, both of which have a matte texture that glitters enticingly in bright light.

Both phones have one other thing in common — an alert slider. Apple's has two positions, enabling normal and vibrate profiles. OnePlus' has three positions, allowing you to pick between normal, vibrate and silent.

The iPhone 13 Pro Max benefits from an IP68 water resistance rating, while only the model sold by T-Mobile for the OnePlus 10 Pro has this rating. The unlocked version of the phone does not carry any official rating. 

The OnePlus 10 Pro measures 6.42 x 2.91 x 0.34 inches and weighs 7.09 ounces, but the iPhone 13 Pro Max is considerably heavier at 8.46 ounces. The iPhone is also wider at 6.3 x 3.07 x 0.3 inches, which makes it a bit more difficult to use with one hand. 

Winner: Draw

OnePlus 10 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro Max: Display

These two phones have the same-size 6.7-inch OLED display, with a 120Hz maximum refresh rate. You have to delve into the details to find the differences.

The panel on the iPhone 13 Pro Max is wider and shorter than the OnePlus' and offers a lower resolution than the 10 Pro's QHD. The OnePlus' refresh rate scaling system can also go all the way down to 1Hz, lower than the iPhone's 10Hz minimum.

You get much better brightness on the iPhone though. It can produce a maximum brightness of 1,038 nits in Adaptive mode, whereas the best you'll get out of the OnePlus is 734 nits.

The OnePlus 10 Pro covers 119% and 84.3% of the sRGB and DCI-P3 color spaces with its display, and its Delta-E accuracy rating is 0.26 (where 0 is perfect). The iPhone 13 Pro Max has a more accurate panel with a Delta-E score of 0.21 but it covers less of the same color spaces at 109.3% and 77.4%, respectively. 

Winner: iPhone 13 Pro Max

OnePlus 10 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro Max: Cameras

Apple and OnePlus have both opted for triple-camera arrays on the back of their phones, covering main, telephoto and ultrawide duties. However, the resolutions are different, with the iPhone opting for 12MP sensors on all three cameras, and the OnePlus 10 Pro using 48MP, 50MP and 8MP sensors for the main, ultrawide and telephoto cameras, respectively.

We'll start our comparisons with a view over Kew Gardens from its Treetop Walkway, taken with the phones' main cameras. For detail, I can't find much difference between them. The colors of the iPhone shot are stronger than on the OnePlus 10 Pro's shot, but I wouldn't call either one better overall.

There's a bigger difference in this ultrawide shot of a water feature in Hanover Square. While the iPhone's image loses some of the color detail in the brighter parts of the shot, the final result is a much better depiction of the rough stone of the fountain. The OnePlus' shot is really flat in comparison, even if you can still see the blue sky in the background.

A moody telephoto image, taken down a road off of Regent Street, is tricky to call. The OnePlus' smaller telephoto sensor has resulted in worse image noise, but I like how it's created a near sepia-like effect of this late afternoon shot. The iPhone equivalent is much cleaner, plus I think on balance its brighter coloration looks better.

On the front of these phones, we have another 12MP camera on the iPhone, and a 32MP camera on the OnePlus. In a portrait selfie face-off, we see Apple do its usual thing of draining the blue sky of color in order to provide better color for me, the subject. 

The OnePlus 10 Pro's cameras are worthy of a flagship phone, no doubt about that. However, the better results for the iPhone 13 Pro Max means it takes the round.

Winner: iPhone 13 Pro Max

OnePlus 10 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro Max: Performance

This was always going to be the iPhone's round. The A15 Bionic chipset is the best smartphone silicon around right now, even though the OnePlus 10 Pro's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip is still powerful.

Looking to the benchmarks, we see the iPhone is well ahead of the OnePlus on the Geekbench 5 CPU benchmark. That lead shrinks on the two GPU benchmarks we used, Wild Life Unlimited and Wild Life Extreme Unlimited by 3DMark.

You're unlikely to notice a huge performance difference when trying the same app on both phones. But you can't argue against the greater raw power of the iPhone.

Winner: iPhone 13 Pro Max

OnePlus 10 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro Max: 5G

Both phones nominally support 5G, but the OnePlus' support comes with more caveats.

The iPhone 13 Pro Max works with any carrier you like, whether they use sub-6GHz or mmWave 5G. The OnePlus 10 Pro, doesn't work with mmWave just yet, meaning you won't be able to access the faster data speeds offered by certain U.S. carriers.

In addition, the OnePlus 10 Pro doesn't support AT&T 5G network at all. This isn't an issue for users abroad, where mmWave isn't used. But we can't ignore how the iPhone offers better access.

Winner: iPhone 13 Pro Max

OnePlus 10 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro Max: Battery and charging

Here we see these two phones show off their different battery-related strengths. For battery life, the iPhone 13 Pro Max is one of our longest-lasting phones, surviving 12 hours and 16 minutes on our custom TG battery test, a little ahead of the 11 hours and 52 minutes that the OnePlus managed. That's still a great score for the 10 Pro though.

The roles are reversed for charging. The 65W charger you get in-box with the OnePlus 10 Pro powers the phone up to 93% in half an hour of charging, while in the same time the iPhone reaches 40%, using a 20W charger that you need to buy separately. The non-U.S. model of the OnePlus 10 Pro can charge even faster thanks to its 80W brick, which gets you to 98% after half an hour.

Battery life is likely more useful to users than a faster charging time, but given there's only 24 minutes difference between the two phones there, this round goes to the OnePlus.

Winner: OnePlus 10 Pro

OnePlus 10 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro Max: Software and special features

You get two entirely different operating systems with these phones. The iPhone runs on iOS, the Apple-exclusive software that boasts a smooth and easy to use experience and an App Store full of reliable, high-quality apps. The OnePlus 10 Pro's Oxygen OS is based on Android, but does a great job of making it look just as good as iOS.

New to Oxygen OS 12.1 is a repositioned widget-filled Shelf that behaves similarly to iOS' Control Center, and an adjustable dark mode depending on how black or gray you prefer the interface to be. iOS 15, and the most recent iOS 15.4 update brought users features like  SharePlay and the option to use Face ID with a mask.

These features will be of varying use to different phone owners, so this round will be decided by how long these phones will get future updates for. OnePlus is promising just three years of software updates and four of security for the 10 Pro, which is on the low side even for an Android. Apple's software update path is less certain, but given most iPhones get full iOS updates for five years or more, the iPhone 13 Pro Max will likely win out in terms of staying updated the longest, which counts for a lot.

Winner: iPhone 13 Pro Max

OnePlus 10 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro Max: Overall winner

Weighing up all the factors we've covered here, the iPhone 13 Pro Max gets our nod of approval. As you can see in the scoring below, it's a close competition, but its photography, performance and software mean it pulls out a 6-point lead.

This doesn't make the OnePlus 10 Pro a bad phone though. It's still among the best Android phones and that slightly lower score is impressive for a handset that costs $200 less than its opponent. Also, maybe you weigh its better battery and charging above all that power you'd get if you swapped to an iPhone.

If you still can't make up your mind, maybe you need to widen your search. Take a look at our face-offs of the OnePlus 10 Pro vs. Google Pixel 6 Pro or OnePlus 10 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, and see if that helps you work out your priorities for features, cost and more. Now that the OnePlus 10T has launched, you can also check out our full comparison between OnePlus 10T vs. OnePlus 10 Pro to know which is the better OnePlus flagship.