This year brought a major shake-up in Apple’s smartphone line – if you skipped the Tuesday announcement, check out our summary here. The iPhone Pros have a new look, there’s a new tier called “Air” and the vanilla model got such a major upgrade that many might skip the small Pro and get it instead. The small Galaxy S and Pixel Pro might be sweating right now.
Let’s start with the Apple iPhone 17 – what’s the big deal? It finally has a ProMotion display, Apple talk for 120Hz LTPO, and it even has an anti-reflective coating. That’s something that Samsung reserves only for the Galaxy S Ultra, the rest of the series (S, S+ and S Edge) don’t get it. The display is larger now, measuring 6.3” instead of 6.1” too.
Apple iPhone 17 at a glance
The iPhone 17 has a new Apple A19 chip with performance improvements and base storage is now 256GB – the Pixel 10 Pro and Galaxy S25 still start at 128GB. Also, the ultra-wide camera was upgraded to 48MP and the selfie camera has a new sensor and OIS.
Plus a bigger battery and faster charging – what’s not to like? Even better, the iPhone 17 costs the same as its predecessor, despite the higher base storage capacity.
Do you have your eyes set on the Apple iPhone 17 as your next phone? Keep in mind that the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus are still available and with a price cut to boot.
The Apple iPhone 17 Pro still has the upper hand with the more powerful A19 Pro chipset and a dedicated telephoto camera – a new 48MP 4x/100mm unit. And the 48MP sensor in the main camera is larger (1/1.28” vs. 1/1.56”).
Apple iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max at a glance
Those aren’t the only differences, but the Pro is quite a bit more expensive – unlike the vanilla model, the new 256GB base storage model wasn’t reduced to the price of the old 128GB model. This means that the minimum price of entry for the Pro is now $100/€100/£100 higher. This means that buying the Pro will cost you $300/€350/£300 more than the vanilla iPhone 17.
Is that worth it?
The Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max is the same story, just bigger – the display is still a 6.9” panel, but the battery has slightly higher capacity. Note that Apple is selling only eSIM models in some regions and those have slightly bigger batteries than phones with a physical SIM slot.
Anyway, the previous Pro Max already started at 256GB base storage, so there’s no change in pricing from last year. Is the iPhone 17 Pro Max the one you are going for?
Then there’s the all-new Apple iPhone Air (no, not “iPhone 17 Air”). If you think of it as a replacement for the iPhone Plus, you should note that it costs $100/€100/£100 more.
But it’s not a replacement for the Plus, is it? It’s smaller with a 6.5” display (vs. 6.7”) and more importantly, it’s much thinner and lighter (5.6mm, 165g) than the Plus (7.8mm, 199g). This comes with a massive cut to the battery capacity, though (3,149mAh vs. 4,674mAh).
Apple iPhone Air at a glance
And you only get a single camera on the back – the 48MP 1/1.56” module that you can get on the vanilla iPhone 17. The Galaxy S25 Edge at least gives you a 200MP main camera plus a 12MP ultra-wide. On the plus side, you do get the A19 Pro chipset.
The iPhone Air is a new product category for Apple and it remains to be seen how successful it is – more than the Plus and the now-defunct mini? Perhaps. But what we want to know today is whether you plan on getting the Air instead of another phone.
