iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max review: An impactful redesign

For the sake of this iPhone 17 Pro review, I’ve developed a gaming addiction.

I don’t mean triple-A games like Destiny: Rising and Genshin Impact, or even double-A or non-A titles like Inside or Vampire Survivors, both of which I greatly enjoy. I’m specifically referring to Snake Clash on YouTube Games — the type of thing you mindlessly play while pretending to watch a documentary on TV, or while slowly growing a hemorrhoid as you waste away on the throne.

The reason I’ve been playing so much Snake Clash is because I’ve noticed in my year with an iPhone 16 Pro that countless hours with games like this cause the device to burn up in my hands. And maybe some other title might also push thermal performance in similar ways, but alas, such is my taste. (Also, Inside and Vampire Survivors never caused my phone to get too warm.)

I spent a lot of time on the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max trying to get them to run hot, because one of the most interesting additions this year is a vapor chamber. That thermal management feature, together with the aluminum unibody redesign and three 48-megapixel rear cameras, is among the most compelling updates for this generation. Throw in the powerful A19 Pro chip (now situated in the “plateau”), a novel Center Stage selfie camera, promises of longer battery life and an eye-catching new color, and frankly the latest Pro phones seem like a serious leap.

For this review, I focused on the performance, thermal management, camera capabilities and battery life of the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. I am bundling them together because aside from screen size, battery capacity and price, the two are functionally identical. I also spent time checking out Apple Intelligence and iOS 26 features, which won’t be exclusive to the new hardware and I’ll refer you to our iOS 26 preview for a deeper dive on.

An aluminum unibody design that’s new and familiar all at once

When I first picked up the iPhone 17 Pro at Apple Park, I found it refreshingly different from the iPhone 16 Pro I’d been using for a year (and also the iPhone 15 Pro before that). But the longer I caressed the matte edges of my review unit, the more I felt sparks of familiarity. The aluminum unibody here reminded me of the iPhone 8, which is no surprise since that device was made of steel wrapped in an aluminum band. Both the iPhone 8 and iPhone 17 Pros use the same 7000-series aluminum alloy that’s proprietary to Apple so that makes sense. Of course, the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max are far from being as thin as the older handset, but something about the matte finish felt great.

Two weeks before the iPhone launch event, my iPhone 16 Pro slipped out of my hand and crashed to the floor of a grimy public bathroom. It had landed at an awkward angle on its edge and cracked spectacularly. Thankfully, most of the shattered glass was near the bottom edge, while hairline fractures reached up in a strangely pretty pattern to the rear camera module. These didn’t cut my hands, but I knew I wanted the next iPhone to be a lot more durable.

With its aluminum frame protecting the edges of the rear and back, there is little chance the iPhone 17 Pro will break in the way my iPhone 16 Pro did. Its screen is now protected by Ceramic Shield 2, so if it fell flat on its face it should still be able to survive the impact. The rear is a bit more vulnerable, since the three cameras still protrude slightly from the plateau, but those are covered by the same sapphire crystal that previous models were. I’ve yet to crack an iPhone’s camera despite my years of klutzy behavior.

This bodes well for the iPhone 17 Pro, though I’ll say I didn’t try very hard to scratch my review unit. I actually went as far as to keep it in the Finewoven case that Apple provided so I could maintain a pristine surface for our photos. I did put both the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max in a bag with the iPhone 16 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro so I could bring them around while camera testing, and it was pretty nice to be able to identify the newest models simply by touch. For years, I’ve seen Android phones, particularly those by Samsung, grow more and more iPhone-like so the departure from glossy glass is welcome.

Plus, neither the Pro nor the Pro Max have been scratched despite my placing them in backpacks or pockets with other phones, keys or badges with hooks in them, though to be fair the same is true of the iPhone 16 Pro until its unfortunate fall.

One other way the iPhone 17 Pro is distinct? That orange color, which is reminiscent of the Action Button on Apple Watch Ultras. It’s also fairly similar to the hue on some traffic cones, though in a more metallic, burnished way. Because the iPhone 17 Pro is supposed to be so much more durable and scratch-resistant, I’d argue for simply showing off its bold new color by going case-free. I also took a whole bunch of pictures of the orange iPhone 17 Pro Max I’ve been testing in a variety of lighting conditions so you can better understand what it looks like in real life. Enjoy:

Faster AI processing and a body that’s largely cooler to hold

Apart from the material and the camera plateau, the iPhone 17 Pro’s redesign had a lot to do with thermal management and battery life. Like I mentioned in the beginning of this review, my iPhone 16 Pro runs hot sometimes, especially in recent months. I was eager to see if the vapor chamber in the new devices was effective at keeping them cool in similar situations.

In general, the iPhone 17 Pro stayed cool — and that’s both during the first few days with the case on and after I removed it altogether. When I played Snake Crash for about 25 minutes, I started noticing some gentle warmth emanating from the camera plateau. I put the device down on a terry cloth blanket and picked up the iPhone 16 Pro to play on instead, and just five minutes later it had gotten as warm as the 17 Pro. Ten minutes later, I had to adjust my fingers so the iPhone 16 Pro didn’t feel like an iron.

That’s not to say the iPhone 17 Pro never got noticeably hot in my testing, by the way. In my experience, generating photos in Image Playground or creating Genmoji typically caused my iPhone 16 Pro to heat up to scary levels. On the iPhone 17 Pro, it took a slightly longer time to get as warm, but it did eventually become so hot I felt the need to warn people if I were to hand the device off. I found the aluminum parts of the handset to be the hottest, which makes sense both scientifically and in the way our skin perceives temperatures.

I do want to commend Apple for the improved performance in Image Playground and Genmoji. It used to take ages for AI-generated pictures or emoji to appear (especially those based on a picture of someone in my photo album), but on the iPhone 17 Pro I was able to get several options in succession before things slowed down. Pictures where I opted to use ChatGPT’s more realistic styles took a lot longer, but by and large I saw a marked improvement in speed here. Those neural accelerators in the A19 Pro’s six-core GPU are certainly pulling their weight.

It might be worth noting that in the 25 minutes of Snake Clash time, the iPhone 17 Pro’s battery level dropped about ten percent. The iPhone 16 Pro went from 90 percent to 79 percent in roughly the same duration, so power efficiency in this specific use case seems fairly similar.

Camera performance

The trio of 48MP cameras on the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max are impressively versatile. Not only are they sharp, megapixel-rich sensors that deliver rich detail and vibrant colors, but also pull double duty and provide additional zoom options. When I was shooting on the iPhone 17 Pro, the camera app showed shortcuts for 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 4x and 8x, which is slightly different from the iPhone 16 Pro’s 0.5x, 1x, 2x and 5x.

As I mention those two models, I’m deeply aware that most people aren’t going to be considering upgrading from a phone as recent as the iPhone 16 Pro. So I’ll just say that as long as you’re swapping from the iPhone 14 Pro and older, you’ll get a significantly better camera system. For those already on an iPhone 15 Pro, it depends on whether you’re using a Max model and care a lot about some extra zooming ability.

I compared the iPhone 17 Pro mostly to the iPhone 16 Pro to see its improvements, as well as the Pixel 10 Pro, which I consider the best smartphone camera this year. So far, anyway. As it turns out, the iPhone 17 Pro holds its own against Google’s latest in most situations. In fact, it’s usually a bit better at retaining detail in shadows in photos with high dynamic range.

Also, as has been the case in the last few generations of iPhones, Apple’s images tend to be warmer and more saturated, whereas Google’s seem a bit muted and gray in comparison. That’s a somewhat subjective observation, really, and likely won’t impact anyone that’s not constantly carrying both phones around.

All about zoom

It gets a bit complicated to compare the three phones on their various zoom capabilities, since they all have different limits and dedicated pipelines. But by and large, the iPhones performed similarly at the 1x level, which isn’t surprising given they’re basically the same hardware. They were also pretty closely tied at the 2x level, and further zooms were slightly different from that point.

I did find that the 8x option on the iPhone 17 Pro delivered clean shots with little noise or blur, and they were well-exposed in general. The fact that I could now go up to 40x compared to the iPhone 16 Pro’s top limit of 25x with digital zoom was a delightful bonus, especially when I was photographing some geese chilling by the river.

The Pixel 10 Pro’s scene options are 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 5x and 10x, with Pro Res Zoom allowing you to get all the way up to 100x, if you don’t mind AI filling in some gaps. I would caution against that, given the strange things it’s generated so far, but you’ll also still be able to use Super Res Zoom for up to 20x zoom without any generative AI assistance, just good ol’ computational photography (Math).

For what it’s worth, none of the photos beyond 8x on the iPhone 17 Pro and 10x on the Pixel 10 Pro look great. But in pictures I took of the “Water’s Soul” sculpture from my vantage point along the waterfront in downtown Jersey City, the Google version delivered cleaner lines and generally looked more sharp. I have yet to encounter obviously weird hallucinations in my photos, though in one close-up shot of a window in a skyscraper, the Pixel turned a white object inside the building into what appeared to be a smear of bird poop.

I also had to wonder what the lettering on the Hoboken Terminal clock tower actually looked like up close, since the Pixel-rendered image had the word “Lackawanna” seem like it had bulbs or dots.

In short, you can get up closer to faraway subjects with a Pixel 10 Pro and typically get cleaner photos, but be mindful that the AI might generate some weird things. Meanwhile, the iPhone 17 Pro delivers solid quality at 8x and gives you greater flexibility than it did before.

Portrait mode is better now

Apple is even closing the gap that Google has had in the last few years in Portrait mode, with its updated engine for photos with digitally applied background blur. The differences, I’ve learned, are in overall Portrait quality at the 2x zoom level, as well as refinements in separation of stray hairs from the background across the mode.

In these portraits I shot of a friend, as well as of a dog statue with a furry tail, there was a significant improvement, particularly at 2x zoom (which is the level I always use for portraits on an iPhone anyway). The iPhone 16 Pro blended some bits of hair (and fur) that stuck out of the silhouette into the mudded background, while the iPhone 17 Pro managed to accurately keep both in focus.

When I compared the portraits by the iPhone 17 Pro to those from the Pixel 10 Pro, it was a close fight. While the Pixel was better at keeping definition along my friend’s temples, the iPhone was slightly better at mimicking the falloff in focus you’d get from a standalone camera with a large sensor. This is especially noticeable with the tuft of blonde hair poking out of her post-cardio ponytail, which the Pixel blurred completely into the background, while the iPhone 17 Pro kept it more in focus.

I will point out that I still prefer Google’s approach when it comes to shooting in portrait mode. In the dedicated mode on iPhones, you have to wait till the interface lights up to take your shot.

outside of the usual photo mode where the effect kicks in as soon as it detects faces of people and some animals)

It’s also worth noting that people might prefer how they look with the coloration of the iPhone shots compared to the Pixel’s, regardless of which is truer to life. You can always edit a picture in post-processing to get it to your desired representation, of course, and Apple’s portraits are also subject to the specific style chosen by the photographer.

I do want to shout out how much I love Apple’s Photographic Styles, which are basically sophisticated filters that apply effects based on depth maps. This year, the company added a new Bright style, which makes everything pop in a pleasant way (and is similar to my once-favorite Instagram filter “Oslo,” that is unfortunately no longer available).

Center Stage square sensor for portrait and landscape selfies

Apple’s latest selfie-camera update is, quite simply, a stroke of genius. I know it sounds hyperbolic, and I want to reassure the skeptics that I was on your side. At first. But I was won over when, almost immediately after saying I didn’t see the practical use for Center Stage in selfies, I was forced to turn my iPhone horizontally so I could squeeze in an extra person when trying to grab a photo of myself and my podcast guests Karissa Bell and The Verge’s Allison Johnson. Nothing convinces as quickly as instant shame.

I was all the more persuaded when I paired Center Stage with a timer or remote control of the selfie camera and placed the iPhone 17 Pro Max on a table. A group of seven or so friends and I gathered in front of the device and watched it flip into landscape mode as more of us got into the scene. It has been helpful in a number of unexpected ways.

If you’re like me and have grown used to zooming out whenever you flip over to the iPhone’s front camera, you’ll find that tapping the onscreen button to do so will disable Center Stage for that photo session. Don’t fret though, whenever you exit the camera app and relaunch it, Center Stage will be on again. You can turn it off altogether by tapping the button on the top right of the viewfinder and disabling both the zoom and orientation options. Or you can select one of the two, whichever you prefer to have.

I’ll also point out that the camera is sharper now, as the 24MP square sensor delivers 18MP selfies, compared to the 12MP TrueDepth system before. Though I‘ve noticed some issues with FaceID, no changes have been made to either TrueDepth or FaceID, so it’s likely my struggles were to do with the way I had set it up on the iPhone 17 Pro compared to the 16 Pro.

I’m not usually a fan of higher-resolution selfies, and did notice my freckles were a lot more prominent in some sunlit shots, but by and large the images haven’t been jarringly different.

Center Stage also works on FaceTime calls, although there it mostly tries to keep your face centered, similarly to how it functions on iPad and Macbook. However, the execution is slightly different, since it’s meant for hand-held calls as you’re walking on the street, for example, or when you don’t have a stable surface to place your phone. I would have loved it if my partner had Center Stage when he FaceTimed me from the streets of New York during a wild night out on the town.

When I called my coworker and paced around a large meeting room, we both noticed the difference with Center Stage and after I turned it off. It was most obvious when I stood still, held out my arm and didn’t move it, then shifted my head around. The iPhone 17 Pro adjusted the background and view of the call to keep my face fully in frame. Now I want to use Center Stage whenever I’m forced to hold my phone during a FaceTime (like an impromptu therapy session, for instance), so I can worry less about whether I’m in view and focus on the conversation.

Dual-camera video recording

I don’t know about you, but my selfie video angle is quite different from my regular angle. That is to say, I hold my hand stretched out farther away from my body, sometimes higher up than my face, tilted slightly down. I find it more flattering. When I shoot anything using the rear cameras, I simply hold it up in front of my face, not as far away as it would be for a selfie.

What I’m trying to say is: I didn’t like most of the dual-camera videos I shot because I could either prioritize the angle for the selfie camera, which might not be great for the rear sensor. Or I could focus on shooting what was behind the phone and include beautiful footage of my forehead. And I’ll be honest, I frequently found myself staring at my face in the little picture-in-picture box and sometimes even moved the phone around to show landmarks behind me, only to realize the main camera (and the rest of the screen) had already been recording it all along.

I don’t think there will be too many situations where dual-camera videos will be useful or share-worthy, but at least it’s a mode you turn on only when you want and isn’t in the way. Plus, for the specific times when you want to show off where you’re at while proving you’re also in the scene, it’s a nice tool to have handy. I did end up liking one dual-camera video I shot of myself enjoying the breeze by the Hudson River.

Greater battery life

I had one goal during this review, and that was to see if the iPhone 17 Pro or Pro Max would be able to last during my testing period without needing a charge. Since there was supposedly more space and better efficiency thanks to the redesign creating more room for the battery, I thought, perhaps naively, that maybe there would be a leap in endurance.

Alas, I was wrong. The smaller Pro fell short of those admittedly great expectations, the Pro Max did come close. Usually, the larger handset lasts about two full days as I go about my review process, which typically mostly involves camera testing, messaging and gaming. I tend to spend more time on the smaller device, using it for tasks like banking, emailing, social media browsing and posting, all in addition to the things I do on the Max. All that is to say that the two days I normally get out of the Pro Max is likely due in part to the fact that I use it less than the Pro, so don’t expect yours to last that long.

With that in mind, the iPhone 17 Pro Max made it to the end of Saturday before it dropped to 20 percent, having last been charged to about 95 percent on Thursday at 8:54AM. Meanwhile, the iPhone 17 Pro typically gets from 7AM till about 11pm ET without breaking a sweat. I still plugged it in overnight though, because I generally don’t like leaving the house in the morning with less than 50 percent, and the iPhone 17 Pro usually ends the day close to 25 percent. So far it mirrors my experience with the iPhone 16 Pro, though I’ll need a bit more time to better gauge the differences.

iOS 26 updates and other areas of improvement

I can’t write a review of the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max and not mention their screen sizes, so here: they’re 6.3 inches and 6.9 inches respectively. ProMotion’s adaptive refresh rates of up to 120Hz continue to make scrolling Reddit a breeze, and while Apple has improved the anti-reflection treatment here, it’s been hard for me to determine what’s changed.

The more obvious refresh when using the iPhone 17 Pro is in iOS 26, which rolled out this week to the public. Friends have already begun to complain about or compliment the new Liquid Glass aesthetic, and one buddy immediately had to turn on the “reduce transparency” option.

There’s a lot I could say about how much I appreciate the bigger buttons throughout the system, or the new lock screen styles. I could also go on about how I had to adjust to the new Screenshots interface and hate that it now requires an extra swipe to dismiss. The revamped Photos, Camera and Phone apps are… fine. I don’t hate the changes, and actually like the new Phone layout.

Ultimately, iOS 26 feels like a significant refresh that matches the vibes of Apple’s new hardware — especially the Air. But because it also rolls out to several previous generations, it’s not something that will impact your (or my) evaluation of the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max.

Why a Pro and not an Air or the iPhone 17?

This year, the iPhone Air actually feels like the status symbol model for those who need to own fancy hardware for external validation. It’s impressively svelte, has an A19 Pro chip and is just something I can’t stop trying to wave in people’s faces to get them to touch. It supplants the Plus model, at least this year, and has a medium-sized 6.5-inch screen that might be ideal for many. And despite its thin profile, the iPhone Air still managed to deliver respectable battery life, according to my colleague Sam Rutherford.

If a 6.5-inch screen or a super thin phone is something you simply must have, by all means go for the iPhone Air. But because I love to shoot ultrawide shots as well as closeups of distant, skittish wildlife, a versatile multi-camera setup is a must for me. If that sounds like you, pick a Pro. Whether you opt for the Max boils down to your preference for size (and I have to admit using the larger 6.9-inch screen was a lot easier on my eyes).

Those with unlimited resources can, of course, get both. Congrats on the wealth.

People with partners or family members that are looking to upgrade at the same time can consider getting one of each. I’ve suggested that to my friends who are married, so the person who cares more about photos gets the Pro and the one who hates bulk gets the Air. Neither is a bad purchase, but the Pro is slightly more reliable. In exchange, you’ll have to fork over more money and give up some pocket space.

Finally, it’s worth looking seriously at the iPhone 17 this year. With its new ProMotion screen, dual 48MP rear cameras and Center Stage selfie setup (that supports the same dual-camera video feature as the Pros), it’s a compelling package for hundreds less. You’ll even get the same Portrait mode that the 17 Pros offer, while the Air has its own specific image pipeline that enables automatic depth capture with a single camera.

If you’re a video creator or producer, I should point out that the iPhone Air’s USB-C port is only rated for USB 2 transfer speeds of 480Mbps and doesn’t support DisplayPort for video out. The regular iPhone 17 is also USB 2, but does support DisplayPort, while the Pro line can handle USB 3 speeds of up to 10Gbps and DisplayPort.

Wrap-up

This year’s iPhone lineup is forcing me to re-think the idea of a Pro phone. Is it one that looks and feels expensive or is it one that’s slightly more durable and maybe doesn’t appear as stylish? I’ve seen some discourse online about how the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max don’t look as classy as before and that the iPhone Air seems to be the more premium of the family. And while I agree that the Air is a shinier, more attractive device, for my needs the iPhone 17 Pro is still the way to go.

Of course, it would be better if Apple didn’t create this conundrum with this year’s iPhones, but it still has to obey the laws of physics. I like a reliable, durable phone that easily lasts all day, takes great pictures from all distances and angles and won’t burn a literal hole in my pocket. It might burn up your wallet, since the $1,099 price is certainly not something everyone can afford, but it does buy some security and longevity.

The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max are a significant update from previous models, and I haven’t felt this excited by a new generation of iPhones in a very long time.