Review: Apple iPhone 17

Next to the flashy redesign of the iPhone 17 Pro and the ultrathin, ultralight iPhone Air, the iPhone 17 may feel quite plain. But I'm here to tell you that I don't think there has ever been a better base model in the annual iPhone lineup.

It helps that the iPhone 17 has many of the features of its pricier siblings, from the brighter screen with ProMotion and Ceramic Shield 2 to the new square-shaped 18-MP selfie camera. No, you don't need to upgrade if you have an iPhone 16 or iPhone 15—maybe even an iPhone 13. But at $799, it remains the iPhone most people should buy, especially considering its cameras and battery life have a leg up over the pricier iPhone Air.

Catching Up

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Bear with me for a second, because the most exciting upgrade for the iPhone 17 isn't going to sound very exciting: It’s a faster refresh rate. Android phones have had 120-Hz screens for nearly a decade, and while it was exclusive to high-end devices at the start, the capability quickly trickled down. Today, you can find phones under $300 with high refresh rates. Apple limited the feature, dubbed “ProMotion,” to its Pro iPhones for the past four years, but it finally caught up with the rest of the market, adding a 120-Hz display for the iPhone 17.

What exactly does it do? Older non-Pro iPhones have 60-Hz screens—the display is showing you an image 60 times per second. The iPhone 17's screen doubles that, meaning you're seeing twice as many images per second. This will make everything on the screen appear smoother and more fluid, even if you're just scrolling through Instagram.

Even better, it supports a variable refresh rate, dropping as low as 1 Hz when the screen is static, like on the lock screen. That's what enables this iPhone to support the always-on display—by being able to ratchet the refresh rate down to 1 Hz, the display is more efficient and doesn't impact battery life as much. You now have an always-on display (if you want it), and anything you do on the phone will feel smoother. Hooray!

The screen is slightly bigger now, 6.3 inches, but more impressive is the display brightness, which can hit a peak of 3,000 nits. Even on the sunniest days here in New York City, I had no trouble seeing the contents of the screen. That's perhaps also thanks to the new anti-reflective coating to help cut glare. And Apple's new Ceramic Shield 2, supposedly three times more scratch-resistant than before, protects the screen. Glass is still glass—I already have a tiny scratch on my display. Use a case and screen protector!

I've been very impressed with battery life. After a week of use, I'm consistently hitting more than six hours of screen-on time, and some of those days involved using GPS navigation, music streaming, and hours of doomscrolling on Instagram Reels. I have yet to find myself worried that my phone is going to die. It easily bests the iPhone Air's battery life and comes close to the iPhone 17 Pro, but if you want the absolute best run time, look to the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

If you're coming from a phone older than the iPhone 15 (I hope you are!), remember that the iPhone now has a USB-C port. That means any Lightning accessories you have will require an adapter, but it's a good time to switch everything over to USB-C. The only annoying bit is that Apple limits data transfer speeds to the same 480 Mbps, whereas the iPhone 17 Pro enjoys USB 3 speeds up to 10 Gbps. You probably transfer most of your data between devices wirelessly, so this isn't something that impacts most folks. But other phones in this price bracket support faster speeds, so it's a silly limitation.

The A19 chip powering the whole phone is an excellent performer. Seriously, for the vast majority of apps and games, this processor kills. Folks who routinely download the most demanding mobile games, like Assassin's Creed Mirage, will find it a little limiting. I cranked the graphics to the max, and the game frequently stuttered and even froze a few times. Not to mention the iPhone 17 got really hot and nearly uncomfortable to hold. That's because it doesn't have the vapor chamber cooling system of the Pro models. Most games will be fine—Monster Survivor ran without a hitch—but heavy mobile gamers may want the A19 Pro chip that's in the iPhone 17 Pro.

The iPhone 17 runs iOS 26, and you can find many of the top new features here, most important of which are the call- and message-screening features to limit the number of spam and robocalls. I appreciate that Apple hasn't shoved Apple Intelligence down our throats like it did with the iPhone 16 launch. However, there are some areas I'd like to see it improve. Namely, the voice dictation service. I frequently use voice to type, and Apple's keyboard routinely gets stuff wrong, forcing me to spend more time fixing my messages before I hit Send. Google's Assistant Voice Typing on its Pixel phones is the gold standard, and this feature really needs an upgrade on the iPhone.

Camera Duo

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

The biggest improvement on the camera front is the upgraded 48-MP camera sensor for the ultrawide, as well as the 24-MP selfie camera with a square sensor (binned to 18 megapixels). The latter is most exciting, and it's the same as in the Air and iPhone 17 Pro. Basically, the square sensor makes it so you don't have to manually rotate your phone to capture a landscape selfie. It's paired with Apple's Center Stage feature, which auto-rotates and zooms out to keep subjects in the frame.

Let's say you're snapping a selfie with a friend. Center Stage will automatically widen the camera's field of view to ensure both people are in the shot. Now, if you have more than two people in the frame, it'll switch to landscape orientation so no one is cut off, even as you hold the phone in portrait. (You can manually rotate the camera orientation too.) That means there's less of a chance you'll drop your iPhone as you extend your hand out. It's smart, and I suspect we'll see a similar version of this feature on Android phones in 2026.

I trotted around Brooklyn with the iPhone 17 and the Pixel 10, a direct competitor at $799. For the most part, the iPhone 17's main camera delivered slightly sharper and more natural-looking results than the Pixel 10. The results from the ultrawide were very similar to the iPhone 17 Pro models and were far less noisy than the shots from the Pixel 10. It further demolished the competition in video capture—even trouncing the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge—with better stabilization and brighter, sharper footage.

However, one area where phones like the Pixel 10 and Galaxy S25 have an edge over the iPhone 17 is zoom. Both of those phones have a third telephoto camera that can zoom up to 5X or 3X, respectively. That's a big deal. You'll probably want to zoom in to capture your kid accepting their diploma, or your favorite musician on stage at a concert, or that cute bird sitting in a tree. There is no reason that one of the wealthiest companies in the world can't stuff a telephoto zoom camera in this phone when nearly every other competitor has it.

Barring this, you're left with a smartphone that delivers great battery life, has an excellent screen, top-tier performance, and a reliable dual-camera system with some of the best video capabilities. Apple has also bumped internal storage to 256 GB—high time! I love the color options this year, even if they're not as bright and fun as the iPhone 16 range.

The only question is how long 8 GB of RAM will be deemed “enough,” especially as artificial intelligence features increasingly demand more. It might be that some Apple Intelligence features in two to three years are only available in the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro, since they have 12 GB of RAM, but Apple is no stranger to gatekeeping features. I don't think you need to worry about it too much. (How many Apple Intelligence features are you using right now?)

The main thing Apple has proved? Yet again, few people really need to buy Pro.