In my role as TechRadar’s phone editor, I’m lucky enough to have access to many of the best phones as they hit the market, and the iPhone 17 Pro is the latest piece of top-end smartphone hardware to hit my desk.
I’ve been using Apple’s new best iPhone for just over a month now, and I can confidently say that the hype is justified: the iPhone 17 Pro is a brilliant all-rounder with an eye-catching design, great 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’d encourage you to ask yourself if you do.
As I wrote after Apple’s launch in September, the standard iPhone 17 might just be the most affordable iPhone ever, and our iPhone 17 review confirmed that statement to be true. So when the time comes for me to return this iPhone 17 Pro loan sample and buy my own iPhone with my own, actual money, I will be ‘downgrading’ to the regular iPhone 17. Allow me to explain why.
To close the gap
The main reason is the long-awaited (and, frankly, long-awaited) display upgrade for the iPhone 17. Not only does the latest base model boast a 120Hz refresh rate, but it also gets Apple’s full-blown ProMotion display technology, which dynamically adjusts that refresh rate between 1-120Hz depending on which display is happening. This helps preserve the phone’s battery life and allows for an always-on screen, while the full 120Hz speed provides a much smoother scrolling experience compared to the iPhone 16.
Apple has also slimmed down the display bezels on the iPhone 17, facilitating an iPhone 16-beating 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR OLED panel. In terms of display, the iPhone 17 is therefore identical to the iPhone 17 Pro – and which function do we use more on our phones than any other?
Okay, okay – that last comment was a little facetious, but let’s turn our attention to the iPhone 17’s chipset, where Apple’s entry-level model performs similarly 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 by the Pro-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 admit defeat on battery life. As you can read in our latest 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 Apple’s Pro and Pro Max phones over 15 and 17 hours of battery life, respectively, while the iPhone 127 manages between the iPhone 127.
The other obvious iPhone 17 Pro advantages are its 48MP telephoto camera and support for professional video codecs like ProRes RAW. The iPhone 17 – with its Pro-like 48MP main and ultra-wide cameras – is an impressive everyday shooter, but it’s not one of the best camera phones, while the iPhone 17 Pro definitely is.
All of this is to say that the iPhone 17 Pro feels more ‘pro’ 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 at up to 10 Gbps) or who desperately need the extra battery life provided by the more efficient chipset. I’m not one of those users, and I bet 90% of the iPhone buying population isn’t either.
Admittedly, I love taking pictures with the Pro’s telephoto lens, and I’ll be sad to see it go when I switch 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 demands.
And if that sounds like a bigger price difference than usual, that’s because it is. A lesser-mentioned benefit of the iPhone 17 is that Apple got rid of the 128GB storage capacity for all iPhone 17 models this year, but it kept the starting price of its base model the same ($799 / £799 / AU$1,399). The starting price of the iPhone 17 Pro, meanwhile, rose by $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 recap: In addition to its aforementioned screen and dual rear cameras, the iPhone 17 also gets 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 iPhone 7 interface with Liquid Glass 1).
The latter phone will give you a 48 MP telephoto camera, better battery life, a vapor cooling chamber, faster file transfer speeds, the ability to record at 4K 120 fps and in ProRes RAW, and up to 1 TB of internal storage (or 2 TB 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 the roundup of the best iPhone 17 Pro deals. But if, like me, you can live without a telephoto lens and the other flagship items, I’d encourage you to consider the cheaper iPhone 17 this year.
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