Over the past few years, the base iPhone has been pushed aside as Apple has reserved the flashier upgrades for the Pro models. This time, against the redesigned Pro and the new Air, the gap appeared even wider. Except that, while the new iPhone 17 looks the same as before, it not only catches up with last year’s Pro additions, but also goes toe-to-toe with the 17 Pro in more than one way.
The iPhone 17 brings several long-awaited features that were missing on its predecessor and have been available on budget Android phones for generations. Most notably, the screen now has a variable refresh rate, meaning it runs smoother and can always stay on. Paired with other quality-of-life improvements, like faster charging and a smarter, sharper selfie camera, this year’s entry-level iPhone feels far more premium than ever, and at the same $799 starting price, a great value among the best smartphones you can buy.
Apple iPhone 17 – Design and Build
The design is the one aspect that constantly reminds us that the iPhone 17 is the base variant of Apple’s 2025 lineup. Unlike the Air and Pro, the exterior of the iPhone 17 is almost indistinguishable from the 16. The two cameras on the back are still arranged vertically in the upper left corner, and the body is made up of the same brushed metal sides sandwiched between a glossy front glass and a matte rear glass.
However, upon closer inspection, there are a handful of freebies. The iPhone 17 is a little bigger, thanks to its larger screen, and a little heavier. However, due to the thinner bezels on the front, this increase in size does not affect its ergonomics and it continues to be a comfortable form factor for most people. I wish, however, that Apple had found a way to make it less wobbly when lying on a flat surface. I’m also not a fan of the new color options, which aren’t as impactful as before.
Another difference is that the screen glass is now stronger and, according to Apple, three times more scratch resistant. This seems to match my experience: when I dropped the 17 on a hard surface, it came out unscathed.
Although unchanged, the iPhone 17 looks clean and charming, but I hope Apple updates the design next year.
Apple iPhone 17 – Screen
As an iPhone 16 user, the iPhone 17 screen was a significant step forward. While it has the same crisp resolution as before, it’s now larger at 6.3 inches, and since the bezels have been slimmed down even further, watching content feels more immersive. It also benefits from a higher refresh rate of 120Hz, making everyday operations, like scrolling and playing compatible games, much smoother.
Even though it seems like an aesthetic upgrade, the 120Hz display makes a huge difference to the daily experience. Previously, when I switched back to the iPhone 16 after spending days with a 120Hz-capable phone, its screen felt like a relic and just wasn’t as fun to use.
More importantly, the screen can reduce the refresh rate by up to 1Hz to preserve battery life and allow, finally, an always-on lock screen – a capability that has remained exclusive to the Pro for the past four years. In this mode, once the phone is locked, the screen dims and continues to show you the time, notifications, widgets and wallpaper. This reduced how often I unlocked my phone because I could just check the time and other information without retrieving it when it’s on my desktop.
The one feature I didn’t expect to like as much as I did was the screen’s new anti-glare coating. Combined with the improved peak brightness of 3,000 nits, the iPhone 17’s display now matches that of its Pro peers and is much better for reading outdoors in direct sunlight.
Apple iPhone 17 – Software
The iPhone 17 comes with iOS 26, which overhauls the software interface with a new design language called Liquid Glass. It replicates the “optical qualities of glass,” providing translucent elements that refract light and colors beneath and react playfully to your entryway. I wasn’t sold on the look of iOS 26 when it arrived, but over time I’ve come to appreciate how fun it is to use. I also like that in some ways it makes the UI more convenient, such as moving the Settings app’s search bar to the bottom of the screen.
What’s surprising, however, is that iOS 26 doesn’t significantly upgrade the iPhone’s AI tools. Siri, in particular, still feels like it’s stuck in a pre-AI era and redirects more complex queries to ChatGPT, which can take several steps. The AI editing in the Photos app also isn’t as powerful as Google’s or Samsung’s and struggles to erase objects from complicated scenes.
The two highlights of my iOS 26 experience were the new call screening tools. With Hold Assist, for example, iPhone waits for you during a customer support call and notifies you when the live agent is ready. Likewise, the Call Screening bot responds to unknown callers on your behalf, and once it collects details, like their name and the reason for calling, it lets you know and you can decide whether you want to answer it. Although these additions are not revolutionary and have been available from competitors for years, they are practical and I use them at least twice a day.
Apple iPhone 17 – Performance and battery life
Even after a year, my iPhone 16 showed little sign of slowing down, but that didn’t stop Apple from equipping the iPhone 17 with an improved A19 chip.
The new processor isn’t much different from the 16’s A18, with a few exceptions. Its GPU is equipped with neural accelerators to boost AI tasks, and it shows in real-world testing: iPhone 17 takes less time to process AI queries, like cleaning photos and analyzing scenes via visual intelligence. Although it has the same 8GB of RAM, the base storage has been doubled to 256GB.
Additionally, the iPhone 17 runs on a new Apple-designed wireless chip, the N1, which enables better Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, as well as the performance of features like Personal Hotspot and AirDrop. These upgrades were absolutely necessary because AirDrop and Hotspot sometimes refused to work on the iPhone 16. The 17 also benefits from the Pro model’s dual-frequency GPS to ensure location services work better inside buildings.
Other than that, you’d be hard-pressed to find a task that bothered the iPhone 17. In everyday use, from multitasking to scrolling through resource-intensive websites, the A19 performed without breaking a sweat. Gaming performance isn’t as good as the Pro, and while it can run the majority of games on the App Store without issue, some of the heavier ones, like Assassin’s Creed Mirage, can stutter at the highest graphics settings. The lack of a vapor chamber cooling system on a Pro was also evident, as the iPhone 17 regularly overheated and was uncomfortable to hold during longer gaming sessions and wireless charging.
Speaking of which, faster 40W wired charging has also trickled down from the Pro to the iPhone 17 this year. The iPhone 17 now takes just 20 minutes to go from empty to 50%, compared to 30 minutes for the iPhone 16. On the other hand, wireless charging has remained largely the same. You can charge it from zero to 50% in 30 minutes on a MagSafe/Qi2 wireless charger.
Thanks to the A19’s improved efficiency and a slightly larger battery, the iPhone 17 also has longer battery life. On a single charge, it can comfortably last a day and a little more, with around five hours of screen time.
Apple iPhone 17 – Cameras
The iPhone 17 inherits the 48-megapixel main camera from its predecessor, but replaces the 12-megapixel ultra-wide sensor with a higher-resolution 48-megapixel sensor. In most scenarios, the iPhone 17 captures sharp, natural photos. While its HDR isn’t as aggressive as the Google Pixel’s, it produces a balanced dynamic range that handles bright backgrounds well, without unnecessarily overexposing the frame. I didn’t notice much difference in the quality of the ultra-wide camera, but it shows up in low-light scenes, where the higher-resolution lens comes in handy for better capturing detail at the edges.
At night, the iPhone 17 camera unfortunately still struggles to handle moving subjects and indoor lighting, where images lack sharpness and color accuracy. More importantly, against bright light it still produces annoying reflections in shots. No dedicated telephoto lens either for the moment, unlike Google which added one to the Pixel 10 this year. Apple’s 2x “optical quality” crop, while acceptable for quick zoomed shots, doesn’t measure up to the depth or detail you get from a physical lens.
The improved 18-megapixel selfie camera is a different story, however. It now sports a square sensor, allowing it to take photos in a wider field of view, ideal for group selfies. Its AI also automatically detects when more people join the frame and widens the field of view, like going from portrait to landscape, without requiring you to do finger gymnastics. The addition of Center Stage is also a welcome change, and during video calls, the iPhone 17 camera will track your movements to keep you in frame.
On the iPhone 17, you can also record video on both the front and rear cameras simultaneously, although this limits you to 30fps. It’s a great party trick, and my friends and I had fun with it at a sporting event, but since then I’ve almost forgotten about it. It will probably appeal more to professional content creators.
The camera control button is still there too. Apple hasn’t made any changes to its flimsy mechanism, so I continue to use it only to open the camera app and never to control it.
