The iPhone 17, 17 Pro, and the brand new iPhone Air – not 17 Air – are here. But which one is the best value, and what exactly do you get for the additional $200 – $300 for the more expensive models?
We’ll go over the need-to-know features and differences of each phone, and then cover at-a-glance summary lists of all the differences in one place so you determine whether the price is worth it.
iPhone 17
The $799 iPhone 17 is cheapest model, but has perhaps the most exciting change in my opinion.
Starting on the outside, it’s available in 5 color options: Black, White, Mist Blue, Sage, and Lavender.
The exciting change I mentioned is the screen. While still at 6.3 inches, it’s now a ProMotion display, a feature previously reserved for the Pro models. That means it can go from 1 to 120 Hz refresh rates, so scrolling is finally smooth.
An additional benefit to having ProMotion is improved battery life, as videos with lower frame rates no longer have to refresh 60 times per second. Apple now claims up to 30 hours of video playback compared to iPhone 16’s 22 hours, which is a big 36% improvement. But what they don’t tell you is that the battery size is only 4% larger, so doing things other than playing videos may not have that big a difference.
The display is protected by the new Ceramic Shield 2, promising to be 3x more scratch resistant than Ceramic Shield 1.
Another area with good improvements are the cameras. In particular, the front-facing selfie camera is now 18 MP, and it has a square lens, which allows it to frame shots in portrait or landscape orientation without rotating the phone.
The rear cameras still have the 48 MP Fusion Main Camera, but now the Ultra Wide is also a 48 MP Fusion camera. These 2 cameras combine to give zoom options at 0.5x, 1x, and 2x.
An interesting new feature, however, is Dual Capture, which records video with both the front-facing camera and rear camera at the same time, so you can show yourself and what you’re looking at simultaneously.
Moving to the inside, the iPhone 17 is powered by the A19 chip with 6 CPU cores and 5 GPU cores, and is said to be 20% faster than the A18 chip in the iPhone 16.
A good change this year is that the starting storage capacity for the iPhone 17 is 256 GB like all the new models this year instead of 128, and has the option to go up to 512 GB. However, the memory remains at 8 GB.
For wireless connectivity, iPhones this year use Apple’s N1 chip instead of 3rd-party, and it supports Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread. Of the 3, the only improvement on paper over the iPhone 16 is Bluetooth.
But perhaps the biggest travesty is that the USB port is still USB 2 for a slow as molasses 480 Mbps file transfer speed. But maybe nobody really uses that anyway so it doesn’t matter.
In summary, these are the important points to take note of for the iPhone 17 as we move on to the next device.
iPhone Air
The iPhone Air is a completely new iPhone category this year, and crucially it is NOT called the iPhone 17 Air, which may mean Apple isn’t planning to update it on yearly basis, but we’ll find out.
The iPhone Air costs $200 more than the 17 at $999, and comes in 4 colors: Space Black, Cloud White, Light Gold, and Sky Blue.
The key characteristic about the iPhone Air is the thinness and weight made possible by the titanium enclosure. At only 0.22 inches deep, the Air weighs only 5.82 ounces. That’s 29% thinner than the iPhone 17, and 7% lighter as well.
The display is 6.5”, 0.2” larger than the iPhone 17, and it has Ceramic Shield 2 as well on the front. However, the back is also partially protected by Ceramic Shield 1.
The other part of the back is the so called “camera plateau”. The biggest weakness of the Air is that it only has 1 camera, a 48 MP Fusion Main Camera, and no Ultra Wide or Telephoto lens. That means you only get 1x and 2x zoom options, and no 0.5x zoom like the iPhone 17 has.
With just 1 rear camera, it also can’t do macro or spatial photography or videography, nor Cinematic mode video recording.
The brains of the iPhone Air is the A19 Pro chip. The Air’s version also has 6 CPU cores and 5 GPU cores, but has other improvements to make it faster and more efficient than the A19. On the CPU side, that includes larger last-level cache size, and improved front-end bandwidth and branch prediction.
On the GPU, there’s second-gen dynamic caching, doubled 16-bit floating point math rates, and unified image compression. There’s also neural accelerators built into each GPU core, resulting in 3x the peak compute of the A18 Pro for AI workloads.
In addition, you get 50% more memory than the 17 at 12 GB instead of 8 GB.
Due to its thinness, battery life is the second major weakness of the Air, at only 27 hours of video playback, 10% less than the iPhone 17. This is due to the 3149 mAh battery, 15% smaller than the 17.
Apple didn’t even say specific numbers for the Air’s battery life during the event, and instead chose to talk about the 40 hours of video playback enabled by adding on a battery pack accessory. But if you carry that around, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the Air?
Though the smaller battery of the Air does allow you to have fast charging to 50% in 30 minutes with just a 20 watt charger versus the 40 watt charger needed for the 17.
Sadly, the USB port is still 2.0 speed just like the 17.
But you do get a case option now that can attach a cross-body strap, so there’s that.
For cellular connectivity, the iPhone Air differs from the 17 and 17 Pro by using Apple’s new C1X modem, which is said to be 30% more power-efficient. However, it doesn’t support mmWave technology.
Finally, international buyers should also be aware that the iPhone Air is eSIM only worldwide, which means it may not be supported in all countries.
iPhone 17 vs Air Summary
So compared to the iPhone 17, paying $200 more for the iPhone Air gets you:
- A 29% thinner and 7% lighter phone
- Bigger 6.5” vs 6.3” screen
- Ceramic Shield partially protecting the back
- A camera plateau with a single main camera and no Ultrawide camera, losing out on 0.5x zoom and some camera features like macro and spatial photos and videos
- A19 Pro chip that should be faster than the A19 with the same number of CPU and GPU cores
- 50% more memory at 12 GB instead of 8
- And a 15% smaller battery with 10% less battery life
- You also get the option to go up to 1 TB of storage instead of maxing out at 512GB
Is it worth it trade off the camera system and battery life for a thinner, faster, and more expensive phone? That’s a tough one.
iPhone 17 Pro
The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max remain the top of the line iPhones, this time at the price points of $1099 and $1199, respectively.
Color options continue to decrease by 1, down to just 3 colors: Silver, Cosmic Orange, and Deep Blue.
The displays continue to be 6.3 and 6.9 inches, but the phone now has an aluminum unibody design, letting the Air be the titanium option. Compared to the Air, the 17 Pro is 25% heavier, while the Pro Max is 41% heavier. Compared to the normal 17, the Pros are 17% and 32% heavier.
Like the Air, the 17 Pro has Ceramic Shield 2 on its front display and Ceramic Shield 1 on part of it’s back under the camera section.
The iPhone 17 Pro has an even larger camera plateau to house it’s 3 cameras. This time around, all 3 cameras are 48 MP Fusion cameras, but not all Fusion cameras are created equal.
The Ultra Wide camera is similar to the one on the iPhone 17 and Air, but the Main camera is actually slightly different, with a 24mm focal length instead of 26, and f/1.78 aperture instead of f/1.6. It also has second-generation optical image stabilization compared to the first generation in the 17 and Air.
The 17 Pro also has a 3rd Telephoto camera, offering optical zoom at 4x (or 100mm) at 48 MP and 8x (or 200mm) at 12 MP. That’s much better resolution at 4x zoom, and a larger zoom in than the 12 MP 5x (or 120mm) Telephoto camera from the iPhone 16 Pro.
The camera features are also better, including Adaptive True Tone flash and ProRAW for photos. However, the bulk of the improvements are for video, including ProRes video recording, and new this year is ProRes RAW format support.
You also get the Academy Color Encoding System, Apple Log 2 video recording, and Genlock support, all professional video features that most normal folks probably won’t need.
And there’s also a LiDAR Scanner on the Pro that isn’t on the 17 or Air.
On the audio side, the 17 Pro has a studio-quality four-mic array while the others have… I’m not sure how many and what quality, but it seems there are at least 3 from these diagrams.
On the inside, we have the A19 Pro chip with 1 extra GPU core compared to the Air, meaning graphics and AI performance could be up to 20% better.
However, it’s possible that the performance difference overall is greater than that due to Air being so thin while the 17 Pro has a new vapor chamber thermal system to dissipate heat and draw out the max performance of the A19 Pro chip. Exactly how much would need to be tested.
Like the Air, the 17 Pro has 12 GB of memory and storage goes from 256 GB to 1 TB. But the 17 Pro Max also has a 2 TB storage option, though it doesn’t come cheap.
The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max have the best battery life, at up to 33 and a whopping 39 hours of video playback, respectively. That’s because the battery sizes are 15% and 38% larger than the iPhone 17, and 35% and 62% larger than the iPhone Air. The Pro Max in particular is the first time an iPhone battery has exceeded 5000 mAh.
And finally, the 17 Pro has a USB 3 port for 10 Gbps per second transfer speeds, 21x faster than USB 2’s 480 Mbps in the Air and 17.
Oh, and Pro models get TechWoven cases that also support the cross-body strap, similar to the Air.
iPhone 17 Pro vs Pro Max Summary
So if we compare the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, the extra $100 gets you:
- A 0.6” larger screen
- A 20% larger battery and 18% more battery life for video playback
- A larger and 13% heavier phone
- And the option to go up to 2 TB of storage if you pay $400 more
iPhone 17 vs 17 Pro Summary
If we compare the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro, the extra $300 gets you:
- Aluminum unibody construction versus aluminum frame
- Ceramic Shield partially protecting the back
- A 3 camera plataeu with a Telephoto camera that can do 4x zoom at 40 MP and 8x zoom at 12 MP, along with a slightly different Main Camera with second-generation optical image stabilization and a 24mm focal length, but a smaller aperture; and a LiDAR Scanner
- More photo and video features, such as Adaptive True Tone flash, ProRAW, ProRes RAW, and more
- 4 studio quality mics versus presumably fewer, less quality mics
- The A19 Pro chip with an extra GPU core and features, along with Vapor chamber cooling, so the performance difference should be larger than with the iPhone Air
- 10% more battery life for video playback and a 15% larger battery
- A 10% thicker device with 17% heavier weight
- And a USB 3 port with 21x faster transfer speeds
iPhone Air vs 17 Pro Summary
And finally if we compare the iPhone Air and 17 Pro, the extra $100 gets you:
- Aluminum unibody construction vs titanium frame
- Smaller 6.3” versus 6.5” display
- A 3 camera plataeu with 2 extras: Telephoto camera that adds 4x and 8x zoom, and Ultra Wide that adds 0.5x zoom, along with a better Main Camera with second-generation optical image stabilization and a 24mm focal length, but a smaller aperture; and a LiDAR Scanner
- Even more photo and video features, such as macro and spatial photos and videos, Adaptive True Tone flash, ProRAW, ProRes RAW, and more
- 4 studio quality mics versus presumably fewer, less quality mics
- The A19 Pro chip with an extra GPU core, along with Vapor chamber cooling, so there should be a increased performance difference
- 22% more battery life for video playback and a 35% larger battery
- A 55% thicker device with 25% heavier weight
- And a USB 3 port with 21x faster transfer speeds
So which iPhone do you think is the most worth it at it’s price point? The feature differences between the Air and 17 Pro are substantial for just $100, so you really need to place high priority on thinness and lightness to justify the Air.
Personally, I would have gone for the $800 iPhone 17 now that it has a ProMotion display, but that 8x Telephoto camera is something I’ve found that would really come in handy quite often, so I might have to bite the bullet and shell out $1100 for the 17 Pro.
