Best EOFY 2026 iPhone deals: save up to 45% outright or on a plan

Display

Without question, the best kind of display you can get is AMOLED, also known as Super Retina XDR in Apple parlance. It offers deep blacks and individually-lit pixels, allowing for always-on-displays that consume very little battery due to the majority of the screen turned off. They’re also incredibly vibrant, with vivid, organic colours that really bring videos and games to life.

What sets apart flagships with budget handsets like the iPhone 17e is the refresh rate, with the latter at 60Hz while the 17, Air, Pro and Pro Max all have 120Hz displays, also known as ProMotion.

Camera

When looking at an iPhone’s camera array, you should consider the types of photos that you want to take. If you want to photograph wildlife or other things you can’t easily get close to, then a telephoto lens is essential, with zoom a key factor to consider, while for landscapes a good ultra-wide is your friend.

But of course, still photography isn’t the be all, end all. If your needs are more centred around video recording, you will want to track assets like the resolution at which a camera phone shoots video, stabilisation features (for action video) and capture modes.

When you have at least a general idea of what you need from your phone’s camera, you can get a better picture of which phone camera setup is for you, whether you’re happy with a single camera setup found in the iPhone 17e and iPhone Air, or you want a more versatile array with multiple lenses like the 17, 17 Pro and Pro Max flagships.

Chipset

Depending on how much you’re willing to spend, Apple’s A-series chipsets offer plenty of grunt under the hood, whether you’re after a flagship iPhone or a budget one..

When purchasing a new handset, it’s important to find out if its chipset is powerful enough to handle your daily tasks. At present, the latest A19 Pro chipset is what you’ll find in the iPhone 17 Pro, Pro Max and the iPhone Air.

The iPhone 17 and 17e have a slightly less juiced-up base A19 silicon chip, which in our tests still provides terrific performance and will continue to do so for a couple more years. After that, you may start to notice some slowdown, depending on how much power-hungry Apple makes its next iOS iterations.

Storage

At least for its current range, iPhones now start with 256GB of onboard storage, with up to 2TB for the most expensive iPhone 17 Pro Max. Depending on what you want to do with your phone, you’ll want to settle on a storage size that’s right for you. The more storage you add means you can expect the handset price to rise significantly as that number gets larger.