While we've all been focused on the shiny, skinny new iPhone Air (see our in-depth review here), Apple's iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max are what most flagship upgraders may actually be ordering over the coming weeks and months.
Is it worth it? Is there enough of a difference from the 16 Pro, or even the 15 Pro?
I've been road testing both iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max for the last week and have some conclusions.
Pros: telephoto camera boost, extra battery life, new heat dispersion system to prolong high-end usage
Cons: aluminium casing not as scratch-resistant as last year's titanium, very slightly bulkier
.....
There are two standout features in the new 6.3-inch, aluminium-framed iPhone 17 Pro and 6.9-inch iPhone Pro Max. The first is battery life, which is a notch up on last year (already strong battery performers) -- I got almost two days out of the 17 Pro Max with normal use and not far behind on the 17 Pro.
The second standout feature is the new camera setup which sees Apple making a significant step up in its telephoto zoom camera, the one part of its photography offering that was being caught, and sometimes exceeded, by rival smartphones.
Otherwise, the range of improvements I experienced testing the two devices are mostly marginal over last year's iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max, although my week's testing indicates that the demands of iOS 26 are handled somewhat better on the 17 Pro and Pro Max models than previous iPhones, especially with regard to battery life.
Pricing has remained the same or has fallen a little, compared to iPhone 16 Pro/Pro Max with the same storage levels.
The net result is that, unless you really hanker after a super-skinny iPhone, the iPhone 17 Pro (or Pro Max) is clearly the most compelling iPhone choice and possibly the best overall pair of smartphones on the market.
A major reason to get one of Apple's flagship phones is the camera system, which remains unchallenged at the top of the industry for video and is there-or-thereabouts for photos, too. Both iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max models have the exact same camera setup, comprising of a trio of 48-megapixel rear 'Fusion' cameras (ultrawide 0.5x, main 1x and telephoto 4x) and a new 18-megapixel front selfie camera.
On the rear camera array, the standout upgrade is the new telephoto zoom lens which, in my testing, has proven to be substantially better than any previous iPhone telephoto zoom lens.
The main reason is that its sensor is 56pc larger than that on the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max. In plain English, that means that it lets a lot more light in, which results in much clearer, much more detailed photos when it's used.
On top of this, the optical range -- the zoomed-in moment where the phone switches over to the dedicated telephoto lens -- has moved from 120mm (5x) to 100mm (4x). This was a smart move, as a lot of zoom photos you want to take are around 3x or 4x and the previous phone's 1x main lens was having to crop in too much from the 1x main lens when you were at 4x.
So now, when you take a close-up photo of your dog running on the beach or your kid playing football 30 yards away, the photo is noticeably sharper.
What really surprised me, though, was how much the larger sensor made up for the lower optical range, even when shooting very far-away objects.
For example, when I photographed objects at 5x, the new 4x telephoto produced sharper, clearer results in any kind of lighting conditions than the 16 Pro's 5x optical lens. As a photographer, that impressed me a lot, as a dedicated optical lens almost always beats any kind of digital crop for detail. The same results occurred at 10x or 15x. Even though the iPhone 17 Pro was having to crop in a lot more, it still produced unarguably better results.
I don't think that Apple has played this upgrade up enough -- it's a very substantial improvement that any photographer would immediately jump on.
There is one other upgrade that most people probably won't every use, but which will further embed iPhone Pros as industry-standard videographer phones. You can now shoot in ProRes Raw, meaning more control for those who are serious about editing video projects or packages. (And for those who worry about the size of files, there's a new 2TB upper storage limit on the iPhone 17 Pro Max.)
2. A new selfie camera
One big difference that Apple has made to all of the front-facing (selfie) cameras on the 2025 iPhone range is a square camera sensor. The effect of this is that when you're using the selfie lens, it can take a photo in either landscape (horizontal) or portrait (vertical) modes (you switch by simply tapping on the screen).
For frequent selfie-takers, the big advantage to this is that it's easier to hold the phone when taking a landscape selfie -- you neither have to awkwardly hold the phone on its side, one-handed while trying to snap the selfie with a forefinger, or hold two arms out for landscape selfies with the awkward results in the photo.
The 18-megapixel selfie camera now also has Apple's Centre Stage feature, which iPads and MacBooks have had for a while. This 'centres' your head close to the middle of the photo, even if you move around a bit, utilising the unused parts of the ultra-wide selfie camera. It also recognises when other people enter the frame (for a group selfie) and works to position the best shot in the same way.
3. A useful new heat management system
Phones are about to enter a new era where an awful lot more is demanded of their engines. While things like gaming and semi-professional video recording could be a factor, here, it's more likely to happen because of the advancing AI era.
Apple's roadmap seems set on keeping a lot of this processing 'on device', to avoid too much of your personal information being sloshed around on various servers in data centres by companies with questionable commitments to security and privacy.
But the flip side of this is that the iPhone's processor may have to work noticeably harder more of the time -- resulting in your phone getting hotter. When a phone heats up unduly, it triggers precautionary measures that dampen activity down, whether that's the display or app performance. Maybe anticipating this, the new iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max both have a vapour chamber built into the device to help dissipate this heat a lot more effectively, letting your phone operate at peak performance longer.
Because we're not quite there yet with Apple Intelligence (and may not be in the EU for some time, by the looks of the regulatory climate), my only real testing of this was to see how long I could play a handful of action games at peak screen brightness. The phone rarely got anything warmer than lukewarm, which was pretty impressive. The upshot is that if you're the type of person who leans on their phone heavily in bursts for heavy lifting, this will absolutely handle it in capacities that neither the iPhone 17 or 17 Air can.
4. ProMotion display and engine power
One of the beneficiaries from that new heat-controlling vapour chamber is the 120hz, ProMotion display on iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, because better heat management means that you can use the higher brightness levels (up to 3,000 nits outdoors) for longer without the system automatically darkening the screen to ease pressure on the system and cool everything down. Apple's efficient use of its high-end Oled display technology is one other reason why battery life is excellent on the 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max.
While below-the-hood engine power is always high-end in 'Pro' iPhones, Apple has really gone for it this year. Added to the 12GB of Ram is the A19 Pro chip which is ridiculously powerful. Not only is it higher than last year's 16 Pro by up to 20pc, but it now beats some high-end laptop chips (on single-core performance), including Intel's Core i9 and AMD's Ryzen 9. To some degree, this is more power than most people will ever use -- I never expect to feel any lag in an iPhone Pro device and this year's models are no exception.
5. 2TB as the top storage level
It's not just a new minimum of 256GB on 2025 iPhones that Apple has introduced -- it's a new maximum of 2TB (2,000GB) on the iPhone 17 Pro Max, twice the amount as last year's top tier. The 17 Pro's maximum storage level remains 1TB. My guess is that this is facilitate creative industry professionals, who need as much space as possible, especially now that Apple has introduced ProRes Raw video shooting. But for people like me, who merely shoot video and loads of photos, it's a massive cushion, even if the 2TB variant does cost an eye-watering €2,489.
6. Design update: a new 'plateau' and the colour orange
The most noticeable design chance is the introduction of a new rectangular panel that protrudes slightly from the rear casing at the top of the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max. Apple calls it a 'plateau'. The rest of the back fo the phone is also now different from last year, with a brushed matte feel to it. When I saw this first up close in California, I thought it made the iPhones look like they had cases on them. But as usual, I'm now used to the design and, while I couldn't call the changes elegant, they're completely fine.
My 6.3-inch iPhone 17 Pro test model came in the new 'cosmic orange' colour. When I handled this first at the Apple launch in Cupertino, I thought it looked a little like someone had put a case on it. Now, I really like it and would choose that colour if buying one. The other colours available are (a very whitish) 'silver' and (a very dark) 'deep blue', which was the colour of my test iPhone 17 Pro Max model.
7. Better battery and faster charging
As well as the better battery life (around 10pc) mentioned above, it can also charge a little faster, both with a cable and wirelessly. I mainly found this useful when I was letting the 17 Pro Max go to two full days on a single charge and needed to top up at 6pm on the second day (which was quite an achievement).
8. The downsides
In terms of disadvantages, I can only think of minor ones.
(i) Both 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max phones are a teensy bit thicker and heavier than last year's 16 Pro and Pro Max models -- about 2pc or so. I didn't notice it in practice, so I'm not sure how big a disincentive it might be,
(ii) In a similar vein, the aluminium casing seems a little less scratch-resistant than the titanium of last year's flagship model. While I didn't notice any scuffs or even any micro scratches, the longer I keep them outside their cases, the more I'm expecting to see tinny marks appear soon, particularly on my (dark) 'deep blue' 17 Pro Max.