Apple has changed a lot with the iPhone 17 Pro, and from the back it barely even looks like any prior model, thanks to a redesigned camera block. But it’s undeniably stylish.
And the upgrades aren’t just visual – Apple has also improved a lot of things under the hood. For example, for the first time in an iPhone there’s a vapour chamber, which helps keep it cool, so it can perform at its best for longer.
And its best is very good indeed thanks to its top-end A19 Pro chipset and 12GB of RAM, making this an exceptionally powerful smartphone.
The iPhone 17 Pro also has some upgraded cameras, with a new 48MP periscope snapper in place of its predecessor’s 12MP one. That’s a big upgrade, and allows for both 4x optical zoom and 8x optical quality zoom, rather than simply the 5x zoom of the iPhone 16 Pro.
The front-facing camera has been upgraded too, as this is now 18MP rather than 12MP, and we see the return of a 48MP wide camera (which can also deliver 2x optical quality zoom) and a 48MP ultra-wide (with a 120-degree field of view).
So the camera credentials are superb, and the iPhone 17 Pro also has improved battery life, lasting for up to 31 hours of video playback according to Apple, rather than the 27 hours of its predecessor.
The iPhone 17 Pro also has a 6.3-inch 1206 x 2622 Super Retina XDR OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, 460 pixels per inch, and a high peak brightness of 3,000 nits.
Other highlights of the iPhone 17 Pro include significant water resistance, allowing it to be submerged up to 6 metres deep for up to 30 minutes, plus three times as good scratch resistance on its screen as the iPhone 16 Pro.
It also sees the return of its predecessor’s Action button and Camera Control, and of course you can secure the phone using Face ID.
All that, and the base storage has been bumped up from 128GB to 256GB, so you get more for your money. Oh, and the iPhone 17 Pro runs iOS 26, so it’s on the very latest software.
