Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro is a bold redesign but a basic upgrade

It’s a tricky year to review the iPhone Pro. It’s long been the go-to choice for anyone who wants an iPhone with the nicest screen, longest battery, and great cameras. But the display is no longer unique to the Pro, cameras have largely gotten “good enough” on most phones, and Apple has a new model, the Air, which might be even more compelling.

This is the first time the iPhone Pro feels like it’s truly targeted at creators — people who need the longest battery life and the best cameras to record video and photos. I’m not a creator, but I’ve always bought the Pro Max for its bigger, higher-refresh-rate screen as much as for its beefy battery. But now I don’t have to for the former, and neither do you, because, also for the first time, the regular iPhone 17 has the same bright, smooth, always-on screen as the Pro (and Air). And it starts at $799, compared to the $1,099 starting price of the iPhone 17 Pro and $1,199 for the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

The iPhone 17 is the new iPhone for most people, and the iPhone Air is the most exciting new iPhone, at least given its totally new ultra-thin design. So the iPhone 17 Pro is for people who really want more camera options, even longer battery life, slightly faster charging, and… orange.

I like the new look of the iPhone 17 Pro. It has rounded edges again, which we haven’t seen since the iPhone 11 Pro. I prefer them to the sharp sides on the other models. And I dig the contrast between the lighter orange of the ceramic-and-glass square panel and the darker orange of the aluminum body. The color difference is also a bit of a guide. It screams “This is where the accessories go,” as if to tell the user, “Plop the MagSafe charger here.” Or “Stick the magnetic wallet on me.” (The wallet covers the rectangle perfectly on the iPhone 17 Pro.) The orange is bold, arguably more so than any other color Apple has launched on a Pro phone. I love it, but there are navy or white versions for folks who don’t. (Perhaps coincidentally, navy blue and orange are the colors of Auburn University, where Apple CEO Tim Cook went for undergrad.)

The camera bar (or “plateau,” as Apple calls it) replaces the small camera island on the earlier Pro models. It houses the three 48-megapixel cameras: main, wide-angle, and telephoto, the last of which is an upgrade from the 12-megapixel sensor in last year’s phones. The cameras sit above Apple’s new “Ceramic Shield” back, which is more resistant to cracks if you drop the phone. The front glass is also more scratch-resistant.

Quick anecdote: The iPhone 17 Pro Max fell out of my pocket and face down onto a rocky trail during a camping trip with my son and was fine. My 16 Pro Max probably would have been, too. And not to belabor the orange, but it was easy to spot on the ground. During a hike, I couldn’t see a big difference in the new max peak brightness compared to my iPhone 16 Pro Max. No huge surprise there; we’re quickly approaching the darker days of autumn, and that high brightness is reserved for the brightest of days. Regardless, most phone screens look OK in direct sunlight now, unless the brightness is being throttled from overheating while you’re on the beach.

I don’t like that the Pro Max is slightly heavier, at 8.2 ounces, right between the 8-ounce titanium iPhone 16 Pro Max and the 8.4-ounce aluminum iPhone 14 Pro Max. After touting titanium’s strength for two years, Apple reverted to an aluminum body for the Pro, paired with the new vapor chamber, to help keep it cooler during processor-intensive tasks, like rendering videos or gaming.

That seems to have paid off. The phone was warm when I loaded up Destiny: Rising and when I played about 45 minutes of War Thunder, but didn’t feel sizzly right over the processor, an area that can get uncomfortably hot on my iPhone 16 Pro Max when I’m playing games or running any form of local AI.

Speaking of power-intensive tasks, let’s talk about the battery. Apple hollowed out a block of aluminum to fit the biggest battery possible inside the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max — promising up to 39 hours of battery life on the larger model versus 33 for the iPhone 16 Pro Max while watching video. Video playback time is a bizarre battery stat for a phone, but it’s one Apple sticks to.

On my first full day with the 17 Pro Max, the phone went a full day of regular use, not video playback, from 7:23AM to midnight, and still had 16 percent battery left. That was a light day of use, with only five hours and 15 minutes of screen-on time, though it may have still been syncing all of my saved data to the review unit.

Battery life improved by the second full day. I took it off the charger at 7:32AM and hit 50 percent battery at 8:43PM, with five hours and 11 minutes of screen-on time. I’d mainly used it for my regular stuff: Slack, text messages, Safari, browsing Amazon, taking photos, and chatting with friends. I usually charge my iPhone 16 Pro Max around 8PM, but I still had half a battery left on the 17 Pro Max. It seems like a significant improvement so far. Your mileage is going to vary depending on what you do, and it’s too early to render an overall verdict.

The Pro Max has the biggest battery you’re going to get from any iPhone this year. There are also some upgrades to help it charge faster. The Pro models, like the Air, support 40-watt wired charging, which juices the battery to 50 percent in 20 minutes. And MagSafe charging is slightly faster, too. If you have a 30-watt charger, the Pro 17, like the regular iPhone 17, can juice with MagSafe up to 50 percent in 30 minutes versus 35 minutes on last year’s phone (the Air can do the same with a 20-watt charger, but has a smaller battery).

The cameras are the reason many people buy Apple’s iPhone Pros. They’re the phones that offer telephoto lenses, have better image stabilization, record sharper video, and include ProRes support. This year, Apple added several additional “Pro” features, like Genlock support, which lets videographers sync up timecodes across multiple cameras, and support for ProRes RAW recording — though you’ll need an external drive for that one.

Pro stuff aside, Center Stage is the best new camera feature, and it’s available on all iPhone 17 models. You’ve probably heard of it. On Macs and iPads, it allows the camera to follow your head — or your whole body — as you talk to someone on a video call. That’s on the iPhone now in the 18-megapixel selfie camera, where it goes one step further, thanks to a new square sensor. Center Stage can automatically detect if there are more people inside a frame and expand to a landscape photo to fit everyone in (you can also switch to landscape mode manually). That means you don’t have to juggle your phone and try to turn it sideways for a landscape photo; you can just hold it in portrait mode. It’s awesome, it works well, and it’s a unique solution to a problem I’d never really thought about.

The front-facing cameras on all iPhone 17 models allow you to capture from the front and back cameras at the same time while recording, which is neat if you want to record a video of yourself showing somebody where you are, or how to do something, though it’s not a feature I see myself using.

Now to the main cameras. All three rear sensors are now 48 megapixels, including the telephoto. Apple has said this is like having eight different lenses. My colleague Antonio already took issue with the phrasing. On a purely surface level, though, I dig the options, and it’s one reason why I’d maybe choose this over the iPhone Air or iPhone 17, which don’t give you as many choices. The ultrawide, 1x, and 4x let you shoot in full 48-megapixel resolution with RAW or HEIC, while the others capture 12-megapixel pictures. Antonio did a better breakdown of how this works, but it’s a mixture of marketing, cropping, and computational photography.

The telephoto camera got a resolution bump, but it also downshifted from a 5x zoom on the 16 Pro models to 4x, making it a 100mm-equivalent lens, compared to roughly 120mm on the previous models. The 5x lens often felt slightly too long for head-and-shoulders portraits; 100mm feels just right. And with the higher-resolution sensor, there’s now a 2x crop zoom mode available to the telephoto lens for an 8x zoom (200mm equivalent). That’s just long enough to ensure that your photo of Alcatraz taken from the Marina Green in San Francisco doesn’t look like an unrecognizable speck, and the quality is more than enough for a social media post.

The shift to 48 megapixels also improves digital zoom quality; you can even get slightly more detailed 5x digital zoom photos from the 17 Pro compared to the optical 5x on the 16 Pro, since more pixels will generally do that if all else is equal. Altogether a smart update for this year’s telephoto.

That 2x crop zoom on the main camera remains a reliable option for environmental portraits and just a little extra reach when you need it. This year, Apple updated some of its processing on the 2x mode to bring out better detail in things like fabric; it’s subtle, but you can see the difference in a couple of side-by-side shots viewed at 100 percent. It’s not a big thing, but 2x images are just a little cleaner — kind of a nice bonus feature.

There’s one thing I still can’t really get off my mind, though, and that’s just how far behind Apple is in generative AI. Not long ago, when I talked to people about gadgets or tech, everyone wanted to know what was new with Apple. Now, everyone just wants to talk about AI and how I’m using it or how it’s going to replace or not replace jobs. And it’s being baked into every other piece of hardware on the market from every other big player, like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon.

While Apple has launched some of the Apple Intelligence features it announced last year, we still don’t have a fully upgraded Siri that you can talk to like Google Gemini. And, sure, you can load the Gemini or ChatGPT apps, or make Siri pull from ChatGPT on the iPhone, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I recently bought a Pixel 10 Pro — it’s an excellent phone — and I love the way it integrates AI at a system level. Google’s Magic Cue, which runs on-device, can scan your inbox and calendar and prompt you to insert important dates and places right into your text messages when it sees you talking about a specific topic. Pixel Screenshots, which launched last year, can remind you of music or books you’ve saved when you open Spotify. And Gemini, which you can pull up by voice or by holding the power button, is just infinitely smarter and more useful than Siri.

I don’t think people are buying phones for these features yet, but the industry is moving awfully fast, and millions of people are using AI every day. It should be a highlight feature on the iPhone, front and center, but it is relegated to the background for things like translation and photos, and in other places where Google also uses it. It just feels like a giant void.

The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max offer a lot of compelling features. Despite a redesign that might otherwise suggest a considerable upgrade, most of the changes are modest. The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max are the best iPhones if you’re after the longest battery life, best cameras, and the most power from Apple’s 2025 lineup. They’re also the top options if you want orange. However, most people should consider the more affordable iPhone 17. It features the same screen and will do everything most people need. Or, check out the Air if, like me, you’re just curious what it’s like to use a very thin iPhone. Worst-case scenario: return it and get the Pro. In orange.