In my role as TechRadar’s phone editor, I’m lucky to have access to many of the best phones as they hit the market, and the iPhone 17 Pro is the latest piece of high-end smartphone hardware to find on my desk.
I’ve been using Apple’s new best iPhone for just over a month now, and I can say with confidence that the hype is justified: the iPhone 17 Pro is a brilliant all-rounder with an eye-catching design, stellar camera performance, and impressive battery life, while iOS 26 is steadily maturing into the most intuitive software package Apple has ever released.
But my short time with the iPhone 17 Pro has also made me realize an uncomfortable truth: I no longer need to go Pro, and I urge you to ask yourself if you don’t need to either.
As I wrote after Apple launched in September, the standard iPhone 17 could be the best value iPhone ever, and our iPhone 17 review confirmed that claim to be true. So when the time comes to return this iPhone 17 Pro loaner sample and buy my own iPhone with my own real money, I’ll be “upgrading” to the regular iPhone 17. Let me explain why.
Closing the gap
The main reason is the long-awaited (and frankly long-delayed) display refresh for the iPhone 17. The latest base model not only features a 120Hz refresh rate, but it also features Apple’s full ProMotion display technology, which dynamically adjusts that refresh rate between 1 and 120Hz, depending on what’s happening on the screen. This helps preserve the phone’s battery life and enables an always-on display, while the full 120Hz frequency offers a much smoother scrolling experience compared to the iPhone 16.
Apple also reduced the iPhone 17’s display bezels, enabling a 6.3-inch Super Retina
Okay, okay, that last comment was a little funny, but let’s turn our attention to the iPhone 17 chipset, where Apple’s base model fares equally well.
Yes, the phone’s A19 chipset is less powerful than the iPhone 17 Pro’s A19 Pro chipset on paper, and the latter is made more efficient thanks to the Pro’s exclusive vapor chamber cooling system. But in reality, only hardcore mobile gamers and 4K video editors will notice the difference. Heck, the A19 is more powerful than last year’s A18 Pro, and we described that chipset as “a speed demon” in our iPhone 16 Pro review.
The tangible differences
I’ll admit defeat when it comes to battery life. As you can read in our recent battery life comparison, the A19 Pro chipset, along with the larger 4,252 mAh or 5,088 mAh battery in the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, respectively, gives the Apple Pro and Pro Max phones over 15 and 17 hours of battery life, respectively, while the iPhone 17 manages between 12 and 13.
The other obvious benefits of the iPhone 17 Pro are its 48MP telephoto camera and support for professional video codecs like ProRes RAW. The iPhone 17, with its Pro-equivalent 48MP main and ultra-wide-angle cameras, is an impressive daily shooter, but it’s not one of the best camera phones, while the iPhone 17 Pro is.
All of this is to say that the iPhone 17 Pro feels more “professional” than any iPhone before it, and I mean that literally. It’s a phone designed for power users and serious mobile photographers who frequently transfer large files (the Pro can transfer up to 10Gbps) or who desperately need the extra battery life that that more efficient chipset offers. I’m not one of those users and I bet 90% of the population that buys an iPhone isn’t either.
Admittedly, I love taking photos with the Pro’s telephoto lens, and I’ll be sad to see it disappear when I upgrade to the iPhone 17. But that feature alone, for me, isn’t worth the $300/£300/AU$600 premium that Apple’s new best iPhone commands.
And if that seems like a bigger price difference than usual, that’s because it is. A less mentioned benefit of the iPhone 17 is that Apple got rid of the 128GB storage capacity for all iPhone 17 models this year, but kept the same starting price of its base model ($799 / £799 / AU$1,399). Meanwhile, the iPhone 17 Pro’s starting price has risen from $100/£100/AU$200 to $1,099/£1,099/AU$1,999.
In other words, there’s an extra $100/£100/AU$200 between this year’s iPhones that didn’t exist between the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, making the iPhone 17 Pro an even tougher sell for casual buyers.
I’ll leave you with this summary: In addition to the aforementioned display and two rear cameras, the iPhone 17 also has the same 18MP selfie camera, the same customizable action button, the same camera control button, the same scratch-resistant Ceramic Shield 2 screen cover, and all the same iOS 26 software features (including the new Liquid Glass interface) as the iPhone 17 Pro.
This latest phone will give you a 48MP telephoto camera, better battery life, a vapor-cooled camera, faster file transfer speeds, the ability to shoot at 4K 120fps and in ProRes RAW, and up to 1TB of internal storage (or 2TB on the iPhone 17 Pro Max). These upgrades will cost you a minimum of $300 / £300 / AU$600 and a maximum of $700 / £700 / AU$1,400.
Are they worth that much to you? If so, go ahead and check out our roundup of the best iPhone 17 Pro deals. But if, like me, you can live without a telephoto lens and those other flagship frills, I urge you to consider the cheapest iPhone 17 this year.
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