Apple iPhone 17 Pro reviewed: one of the year’s best

While it’s nearly $2K price may stop you in its tracks, the power and versatility of the iPhone 17 Pro is impossible to ignore. It’s easily one of the year’s best phones.

We’re nearing the end of the year, and whether you live in the same tech-obsessed world as tech reviewers do or not, you probably know what’s coming: iPhones.

Every September and October, new iPhone models arrive, ready to take the place of the old ones.

It’s just part and parcel of how things are done, with Apple providing two ranges: the regular iPhone models and the more impressive Pro models.

The iPhone range actually covers more models than just standard and pro, but if you’re looking for the best you can find in an iPhone, you turn to those pro models, of which there are two sizes: regular and large. And while phones are typically larger than they’ve ever been, regular-sized phones still matter for many.

That’s where the iPhone 17 Pro sits this year, offering one of the most impressive sets of features for a phone in its size. But is it worth the asking price? Let’s find out.

Design

A new iPhone often means keeping everything the same, but that’s not quite what has happened in the 2025 generation.

The front looks the same: it’s an iPhone. You’ve seen that front before plenty of times, all throughout the iPhone generation, with the island display popping up on the iPhone 14 Pro and now sticking around ever since.

The back sees the bulk of what’s new in the design, with a wide camera bar at the top, housing the three camera combo Apple is using, plus the LED flash and LiDAR sensor.

It’s raised and clearly a new part of the design, reminiscent of the camera bar on the Pixel range, such as this year’s Pixel 10 Pro XL. Apple’s take on the idea is a little wider, but also assists the iPhone in another place it has struggled in the past few years: balance.

Now that the camera grip isn’t just a square in one corner, leaving the iPhone on a surface doesn’t feel off balanced. Rather, it just leans against a table at an angle.

While flat is clearly the winning choice, this is much, much better. There’s no more obvious wobble.

Beyond the balance, Apple has moved away from titanium in this generation of iPhone, opting for an aluminium unibody design with glass on the front and back, both of which are protected by Ceramic Shield. The back gets the first-generation, a variant that we’ve seen pick up scratches before, but the front sees Ceramic Shield 2, which promises to be tougher overall.

The design is also a touch thicker than its predecessor, jumping from 8.25mm to what it now is: 8.75mm. You probably won’t notice the change, though cases will, with the thickness and that new rear design preventing old cases from being compatible.

Features

The back is clearly where most of the obvious changes are, but here on the iPhone 17 Pro, there’s more going on then a raised surface.

Inside, Apple has upgraded the tech from the A18 Pro to the A19 Pro, a new spot of hardware with a 6-core CPU (made of two performance cores and four efficiency cores), plus a 6-core graphics chip (GPU), and a 16-core Neural Engine.

There’s support for 5G, Bluetooth 6, WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be WiFi 7, GPS, plus NFC for Apple Pay and Ultra Wideband radio for AirTags, and yes, there’s also USB-C at the bottom covering 10Gbps over USB 3 and DisplayPort. Wireless charging is covered using MagSafe, as well as with Qi2 25W.

Cameras are clearly a big feature, with three on the back and one on the front.

At the back, there’s a combination of 48 megapixel cameras, stretching across a 48 megapixel 24mm wide F1.78 camera that can capture at 24 and 48 megapixels, but crops down to 12 megapixels when it captures at 2X. There’s also a 48 megapixel F2.2 13mm ultra-wide camera, and a 48 megapixel 100mm 4X F2.8 camera which crops down to 12 megapixels when capturing at 8X’s 200mm.

The 48 megapixel Fusion camera stack also include macro photography at 48 megapixels, as well as 4K video at up to 120fps, Dolby Vision HDR at up to 120fps, and slow-motion recording at 240fps in 1080p Full HD or 120fps in 4K.

At the front, you’ll find an 18 megapixel selfie camera supporting F1.9 and an automatic mode to centre yourself in the frame, something Apple calls “Center Stage”.

There’s also Apple’s Face ID security, emergency SOS using satellite technology, crash detection, support for Apple Find My, support for Thread smart home technology, and dual SIM using either two eSIM or one nanoSIM and one eSIM.

All of this sits under a 6.3 inch OLED display sporting a resolution of 2622×1206, and running a 120Hz refresh rate with Apple’s ProMotion technology, which can stop the screen down to 1Hz on standby.

In-use

While the tech has changed slightly, how you use the iPhone has not, as Apple keeps what has worked previously, but offers up iOS 26.

That means you’ll find a neat combination of app shortcut icons and widgets, all editable in whatever approach you want. You can have icons in an obvious grid, or you can space them out in your own way, much like how Android has offered for years.

iOS 26 ups things with a little more AI integration, something you may or may not use, and there’s a lot of tweaking in how you want to make your iPhone appear. Changing backgrounds is normal, but you can go a little further and change other aspects, such as font types, sizes, and control routines based on times of the day all too easily.

Using this iPhone is just about as easy as using any iPhone, so we doubt anyone will have any problems.

You will find other aspects of controls here, such as the action button on the left edge and the camera control on the right, extra features you might find useful, or that you just might ignore at times.

The same is true with the always-on display, which uses a bit of battery life by keeping the screen on by lowering the refresh rate of the 120Hz display, but still showing your background, the time, and any notifications.

Face ID is also back for another year, and is probably the feature you won’t ignore, since it’s the only biometric security feature on the iPhone. Like in previous years, it’ll lock down your iPhone on top of the PIN code, but also provides security for payments, apps, and hidden and private folders you don’t want your kids to see.

Performance

One big new feature this year is a new chip, as the A18 Pro from the iPhone 16 Pro jumps to the A19 Pro in this generation, and while not a surprise that there’s a new model, there is definitely more performance.

Tested against previous iPhone “Pro” models, there’s a clear jump in performance year on year, essentially guaranteeing you solid specs for the next few years of ownership.

Folks who own iPhones going back one or two years won’t see major changes, but from a few years before that — iPhone 14 Pro and earlier, for instance — it’s pretty clear the new hardware is definitely more capable.

Most of the time, you probably won’t see or feel it. Everything is snappy on the iPhone 17 Pro, but in fairness to Apple, that’s pretty consistent on its Pro models in general.

The iPhone Pro has always been a great top tier phone, and the iPhone 17 Pro’s performance doesn’t change that. It’s just more greatness.

But the iPhone 17 Pro is interesting for another reason, because when you compare it to some of Apple’s other silicon, the performance becomes extra notable.

Take the Apple M3, a desktop-class chip Apple has used in Macs as well as in this year’s iPad Air.

When you compare the M3 to the A19 Pro, there’s a pretty solid performance comparison going on, with similar benchmarks across CPU and GPU.

The A19 Pro is clearly not the same chip, but the performance isn’t far off the mark, and basically tells you Apple has given the iPhone 17 Pro the chops to keep going for years to come.

Folks who need high-speed 5G won’t be disappointed, either.

Speeds as high as 723Mbps were picked up in our tests with the iPhone 17 Pro on Australia’s Telstra 5G network, and depending on your connection, you should find high speeds on offer, as well.

Apple’s new hardware stack includes support for high-speed mobile, giving you solid speeds to go, while at home, you’ll find the Apple N1 chip covers WiFi 7, giving you great speeds if you connect to a WiFi 7 (802.11be) router, as well.

Camera

The other big new deal in the 17 Pro is the camera, which is now a clever little package forming Apple’s “Fusion” camera. This idea has always been several camera sensors working together, and in the iPhone 17 Pro, there’s more of that at play.

In fact, the excitement in this generation is the use of three 48 megapixel cameras working together to provide ultra-wide, wide, and 4x telephoto, and which can crop down to the centre square in each to give you a little more to work with. That means the 48 megapixel 1X wide camera can crop down to a 24 megapixel 2X, and the 4X 48 megapixel can crop down to an 8X 12 megapixel image.

While that might look like simply numbers, the long and short almost literally is that the iPhone 17 Pro offers a range of 0.5X to 8X, segmenting each stop almost like you were using a proper kit lens. You really can go from ultra-wide to quite close, and that’s good news for people who love to take photos.

Testing that camera, the results are easily some of the best in the business, offering daylight images with detail, while night time lets you punch through the darkness when the low-light mode kicks in, stacking images together.

Portraits are easily one of the better aspects of the 17 Pro, the new 48 megapixel Fusion camera system letting you capture a 4X portrait with lovely soft controllable bokeh, something you can tweak slightly due to the aperture control afforded as part of iOS’s camera and image editing controls.

It means images not only look good, but are editable, too. Even images shot outside of portrait can still become a portrait, a feature we’ve loved since its introduction in iOS and the iPhone in the past couple of years.

Macro is also one of the solid features here, giving you really lovely detail that has to be seen to be believed.

You can almost feel the oil on a fried chip we captured, while the pillows of citrus look ready to explode on a sliced orange. Apple’s macro may still need you to get pretty close to your subject, but the result is stunning, the likes of which not every phone camera achieves quite this well.

The result for the iPhone 17 Pro camera is that it is one of the best in the bunch, and a joy to use.

Centre Stage selfies

At the front, there’s another camera worth talking about, and it is also new: the Centre Stage selfie camera, or “Center Stage” if you happen to be American and/or from Apple’s marketing department (Pickr is an Australian publication, and the word “centre” is spelled with an “re” in this country).

Regardless of how you spell it, Centre Stage on the selfie camera uses an 18 megapixel F1.9 camera with a degree of software smarts to track the positions of faces and work out whether the frame should be horizontal or vertical, and whether the view could be zoomed out to fit more people in or cropped tighter on the subject.

Think of Centre Stage selfies as giving the iPhone control for getting the best selfies you can get on the phone, complete with support for the portrait mode.

The system works well, and even provides ways to quickly make changes and turn off aspects easily.

However, you may not be getting that 18 megapixels the entire time.

Testing Centre Stage, we found images were typically either 7 megapixels or 18 megapixels, giving you an idea of just how much Apple’s Centre Stage was cropping and zooming at times, effectively halving the resolution.

Turn off the Centre Stage features and you’ll consistently get 18 megapixels, but leave it on and end up with roughly half.

None of this is bad, mind you; megapixels aren’t all that make up a picture, and the result from the iPhone 17 Pro selfies is consistently excellent.

Battery

Much like the battery, which delivers consistency across a full day, and then a little bit more, provided you’re not leaning on the screen or camera obsessively.

Apple suggests the screen can be used with media for up to 31 hours when a video is stored locally, with up to 28 hours streamed. Our tests revealed closer to 24 hours using our own Pickr BatteryBench app, which works a little different from Apple’s approach of using videos from the iTunes Store.

However, over 23 hours is a solid effort, with the phone kicking into emergency power at the 23:54:50 mark. Yikes.

In real-world testing, we found closer to 28-32 hours was possible on the iPhone 17 Pro before we needed to plug in a charger, made up of roughly 5-6 hours of active screen time, though the idle time could be added to that, punching it up an extra two or three to a total screen use time of 8-9 hours all up.

However you slice it, anywhere between 6 and 9 hours of screen use is excellent.

Many may still need a daily charge, and depending on how much you use the camera, you might even find an extra charge throughout your day is necessary. But the result for the iPhone 17 Pro is solid enough to keep quite a few owners going in the space of a 24 hour period.

Better, because it now supports faster MagSafe at 25W also covering Qi2 25W. That means a 30W wireless charger can now handle up to 50 percent recharge in half an hour, while a wired charger with a 40W adaptor can do the same in about 20 minutes.

Owners of a MacBook Pro already have a fast charger simply from their charging blocks. Handy.

Value

The price is where things get complex, because the 17 Pro is not an inexpensive phone.

Starting at $1999 in Australia and $2349 in New Zealand, the 17 Pro is relatively high-priced for a phone, since it may as well be a $2K handset.

The base model 17 Pro is 256GB, and while that’s definitely more generous than the 128GB variants, 512GB will cost you $2399 and 1TB for $2799. Either way, you’re spending quite a bit on a phone meant to last several years.

Judging the value is complex because it’s pretty clear the hardware is top tier, delivering some of the best of the best, even if you may not plan to use it.

So our advice is this: if you’re trying to evaluate whether the $2K price of the iPhone 17 Pro is worth paying, use more of the phone than simply as a content consumption device.

Snap pictures using the camera’s full capabilities, watch videos on that great screen, play games designed to take advantage of the hardware underneath, and use that phone beyond simply doomscrolling through social media, reading emails, and taking the occasional phone call. It’s still a phone, right?

Seriously use the iPhone, getting the best you can from the handset over several years, protecting it and making sure it’s serving your needs until you need a new one, which may well be a year or three or five from now, hopefully the latter.

What needs work?

As with previous generations, Apple has made a stellar phone. There’s so very little to complain about beyond the aforementioned price.

The iPhone 17 Pro is comfortable to use, top tier for tech, and easily one of the best choices out there, especially for a more “normal” sized handset. At 6.3 inches, the 17 Pro may not be a small phone, but it’s definitely not a big phone either.

This is Apple’s best normal-sized phone for sure.

But we’re a little surprised the thickness has gone backwards, increasing the size from 8.25mm to 8.75mm. While that might seem like simply numbers, the hardware seems to be getting thicker again, which could affect your pocket.

We’re also curious about the long-term paint job and durability, which sees the change from titanium to aluminium, as well as with a difference in coating.

We’re not saying that the iPhone 17 Pro will necessarily be more prone to scratches than other iPhones, but early indications suggest this phone could well need a case more urgently than other models.

You will probably not be holding a razor to the side of your phone, and that’s a good thing, but phones pick up scratches from simply existing, and screens do, too. Surface abrasions will clearly be a thing here, so case up quick before the fears affect the physical look of this phone.

What we love

The first thing we did was case up, but the second thing we did with the iPhone 17 Pro was snap pictures on its excellent camera system, which is easily one of the best in the business.

In a year where cameras on phones have felt a little stagnated, the iPhone 17 Pro improves things in the little way it needs to. It’s just enough of an improvement to make a difference, with a clever stack of sensors aimed at delivering versatility all around.

You can go wide, you can go close. You can capture portraits and macros and pictures aplenty.

The system is finely tuned and offers plenty of ways to tweak the imagery and colour, and overall, the iPhone 17 Pro camera just stands out in the right way.

Coming from carrying a DSLR and mirrorless pretty much non-stop over the years to not carrying one at all, the iPhone 17 Pro is possibly one of the best examples of a phone where you’ll feel safe for leaving that full-sized camera at home.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

In a year when phones have felt a little stale at times, and some of the best models have been the most creative in design and thickness, the 17 Pro feels like just an update.

But what an update.

The iPhone 17 Pro is an update in the right places, boosting the performance and camera, while also giving it a new look that makes it that little bit different and refreshed.

Not every iPhone owner will want to make their way to the 17 Pro, and the price could certainly stop some in their tracks.

But if you’re after one of the best regular-sized phone this year, this is one phone you won’t want to miss. The iPhone 17 Pro delivers so much for so many.

One of the year’s best, hands-down. Regular hands and pockets will love it. Highly recommended.