Apple iPhone 17 Pro Review: The Best iPhone Yet

Priced from £1,099 in the UK for the 256GB model, the Apple iPhone 17 Pro is thicker, heavier and — in its new orange finish — bolder than the iPhones that came before it. On paper that might sound like a step backwards. Yet after several weeks of testing, the verdict is emphatic: never has an iPhone been this good. This is not simply a matter of a new processor and a control button whose purpose, a year on, still isn't entirely clear. For the 17 Pro and the 17 Pro Max, Apple has grasped the nettle and evolved its most ambitious formula inside and out, and the result is one of the most accomplished iPhones in years.

One point is worth making up front: this year the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max are technically identical in every respect bar screen size. You no longer have to buy the larger, more unwieldy model to get Apple's best camera system, a decision that deserves praise because it hands buyers the maximum of choice.

Heavier, thicker, more imposing: has Apple taken its Pro range in the opposite direction to the featherweight iPhone Air? How do you justify a high-end phone that puts on weight as it evolves? Because that is exactly what has happened here: 206 grams on the scales (against 199g for the iPhone 16 Pro) and 8.75mm thick (against 8.25mm last year), all while carrying an ever-larger camera housing.

As the test makes clear, that apparent bulk is entirely deliberate, and it lets the phone advance other arguments without giving any ground on design. For all the extra grams and millimetres, this remains a thoroughly desirable object. The most visible change is the camera "shelf" that houses the photographic hardware, which now runs the full width of the back. That brings two benefits: laid flat on its back, the 17 Pro is more stable, even if the lenses still protrude a little, and the shelf's finely bevelled edge gives your fingers a comfortable ledge to rest against when you grip the phone one-handed, a reassuring hold for anyone brave enough to go without a case.

Still at the back, the glass panel, Ceramic Shield 2 no less, makes a choice some will question: the two-tone difference in colour can jar. To the touch, though, it is beautifully done, and the testers found themselves running a fingertip from one surface to the other simply to appreciate the build. The same goes for handling in general, and this is perhaps the 17 Pro's chief aesthetic achievement. Coming from an iPhone 16 Pro, the testers had no difficulty accepting a heavier, thicker phone; if anything, the rounded edges make the new model easier to grip and more pleasant to use. Contestable though Apple's design choices are, one consequence is obvious: rarely has a "Pro" iPhone so fully lived up to its name. Alongside its premium look, it wears a visible gain in muscle that stands out all the more given that, at the other end of the range, the iPhone Air makes radically opposite choices.

With the 17 Pro, Apple proves once again that it remains the benchmark for build quality. The test had already noted as much when reviewing the iPhone Air, particularly against Samsung's Galaxy S25 Edge. The 17 Pro continues that tradition of rigour and craftsmanship that makes every one of the brand's phones a fine object first and foremost. New this year on the finish front is the vivid orange, full of character, which some fear may eventually grate.

A launch controversy does hang over the phone. Nicknamed "Scratchgate", it concerns a supposed weakness in the anodised coating that allegedly allows scratches too easily, notably around the camera shelf. The coming months will show how robust the chassis really proves, and the test is reserving judgement on that point. On every other count, this is a classic iPhone: well drawn, handsomely executed and particularly well finished.

There is very little to separate the Pro and the Pro Max on screen, because both rank among the finest displays on the market. The test measured a peak brightness of around 3,000 cd/m², placing the panel near the top of its class. But it is on calibration that the screen truly distinguishes itself, delivering reference-grade accuracy. Excellent, however, is not the same as perfect: two avenues for improvement remain for the 17 Pro's display and for its successors. Even so, for colour fidelity and outright brightness this is as good as it currently gets on a phone.

Wide Angle

In the camera app the 17 Pro suggests switching to 2x, particularly for portrait mode. The result is attractive and comfortably holds its own against rivals, here the Galaxy S25 Ultra and the Pixel 10 Pro XL. The iPhone's colour treatment is noticeably warmer than its competitors', and the subject stands out from the background better than on the Pixel 10 Pro XL, with a gentle background blur that flatters the foliage behind. Up close, all three flagships struggle equally with the fine strands of hair escaping the subject's head; the background blur is a shade less pronounced on the iPhone, but only a shade. Otherwise they are hard to separate, though faces look a touch more radiant on the iPhone, which probably pushes warm tones a little harder.

Telephoto

This is one of the 17 Pro's standout new features: a 4x telephoto with a 48-megapixel sensor. In practice that means the phone can reach a "lossless" 8x zoom by cropping into the sensor. The result is very clean and lives up to expectations; the difference in sharpness between the 4x optical and the 8x cropped image is imperceptible, and both show fine dynamic range and consistent colour and exposure within the same scene. It is, in short, lovely work.

Set against the Galaxy S25 Ultra and the Pixel 10 Pro XL, with the test deliberately moving between shots to match an equivalent 4x to 5x framing so as not to unfairly favour the iPhone, two things stand out. First, the subject is separated from the background far better on the iPhone; it is better exposed than on the S25 Ultra, and more cleanly cut out than on the Pixel, which handles its dynamic range less well. Once again, though, the colour leans warm, not always matching the scene in front of the lens. A close-up makes the difference in processing clearer still: here the S25 Ultra looks dull beside its rivals, while for sharpness the iPhone and the Pixel are evenly matched, differing mainly in their colour choices.

One particular strength of this new telephoto is that it works with super-stabilisation right up to an 8x equivalent, for a result that is, at the very least, impressive. Across the three phones, the 17 Pro is the only one able to produce so clean an image at such a long focal length. The one snag is that the processing happens after capture, so you can't quite tell how the footage will look while you are filming.

The 17 Pro is powered by the new A19 Pro processor, designed by Apple and manufactured on a 3nm TSMC process, paired with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage as standard, rising to 1TB on the Pro and 2TB on the Pro Max. The most striking change this year, however, is the attention Apple has paid to heat dissipation. Two things make the difference: an aluminium frame, said to shed heat better than the titanium or stainless steel used before, and, a first for an iPhone, a vapour chamber.

And it appears to work. The test recorded a maximum temperature of 36.2°C; for perspective, only the iPhone 17 Pro Max and the OnePlus Pad Lite did better, at 34.6°C and 34.9°C respectively. Better still, that is a major improvement on the previous generation, which peaked at 43.5°C in the same exercise, a drop of almost 7°C that lets the processor deliver its full potential while also helping battery life. As the test concluded, the 17 Pro's greatest strength is an invisible one.

Day to day, the 17 Pro, like the Pro Max, handles just about any task without difficulty, with near-flawless fluidity and stability. As for benchmarks, on Geekbench 6 the 17 Pro crushes the competition, both in the all-important single-core CPU test and on the GPU. On AnTuTu 10 it again sails ahead on CPU, but is overtaken on graphics by phones running last year's top-end Android silicon, the Snapdragon 8 Elite. That slight graphics deficit shows up again on the final two tests, GFX and Wild Life, where the iPhone underperforms. In 3DMark's Wild Life it has clearly chosen stability over raw power: its score is modest, but it holds those performance levels across all 20 loops of the test.

Having made much of the A19 Pro's performance, its vapour chamber and its camera sensors, Apple said little about the 17 Pro's battery life. Is that the sign of a sore subject? The main ingredient of good endurance is battery size, and the 17 Pro's is 4,252mAh, sizeable certainly, but well short of the best on the market, which comfortably exceed 5,000mAh. What does that translate to in hours? Something rather good, as it happens. At 19 hours and 10 minutes to fall from 100% to 5%, the 17 Pro acquits itself very well. It lasts an hour longer than the Samsung Galaxy S25, though it remains far behind the category benchmark, the OnePlus 13R and its 22 hours 31. If battery life is essential to you, Apple has one sharper weapon still: the iPhone 17 Pro Max and its 21 hours 14, one of the ten best models on the market on this measure.

It is the question that comes round every year: is this the year to change your iPhone? At £1,099 for the base model, it carries even more weight. Even if the 17 Pro and Pro Max do not reinvent the genre, they add a few well-judged improvements that could tip the balance. Above all, this year's flagship irons out the small flaws that, without being deal-breakers, had left Apple trailing certain Android phones. Battery life is no longer a weakness, and photography takes a fine step forward, all while keeping strengths such as build quality and the display that have become almost guarantees at Apple.

That said, if you own an iPhone 15 Pro or 16 Pro, the iPhones capable of running Apple Intelligence, moving to a 17 Pro does not strike the test as urgent. Further back, for the iPhone 13 Pro and 14 Pro, the gains in performance and especially photography will be more noticeable, though not necessarily enough to raid your savings. It is for older models, such as an iPhone 12 Pro, that the upgrade makes the most sense.

This review will not revisit the software side, iOS 26, in detail, since that coverage applies to every compatible iPhone rather than to this one in particular. But it is hard to discuss a 2025 flagship without addressing AI. Strangely, or perhaps not, absent from the launch keynote, Apple Intelligence is today one of the iPhone's weaknesses. To be clear, it remains a well-integrated and occasionally useful tool, but the comparison with what Gemini does on a Pixel 10 Pro, or on Samsung's high-end phones, is clearly to Android's advantage.

The arrival of the iPhone Air has had one major consequence: it has freed the 17 Pro from its straitjacket. Apple's most powerful and ambitious phone no longer has to win you over on design alone. If its new dimensions might suggest a certain letting-go, they are in fact a deliberate gain in mass, the better to shoulder its responsibilities, chief among them being Cupertino's technological showcase. Even so, Apple skimps on neither design nor finish: this unibody chassis and new camera shelf produce a phone that is heavier but also better balanced. Crucially, Apple can now fit a larger battery and even a vapour chamber to support a hugely capable A19 Pro processor. And the screen? Quite simply the most accomplished on the market today.

The iPhone has often carried these strengths, including in earlier versions, but they were forever offset by more or less notable flaws that tarnished the overall picture, with weaker battery life and a less ambitious camera than the competition the usual complaints. The 17 Pro genuinely improves on both, and now offers a versatility and level of performance more in keeping with its price. In the end, even though the iPhone Air stole the limelight and the standard iPhone 17 is better armed than ever, the 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max are an excellent vintage, the kind that makes you wonder about an upgrade. This year, that wondering might just be justified.

This review is based on independent laboratory testing rather than our own hands-on trial.