Apple’s ‘Awe Dropping’ event was packed with new devices, with the tech giant unveiling the iPhone 17, iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max, as well as the Apple Watch Ultra 3, Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch SE 3, and AirPods Pro 3.
As TechRadar’s Staff Writer for Mobile Computing, I’m naturally drawn to the new iPhone lineup, and even accounting for my own preferences there’s one device that rose above the rest during Apple’s hour-long presentation.
I’m talking about the regular, standard, base-model iPhone 17 – if you ask me, the iPhone 17 was the clear winner of this Apple Event, getting some welcome (and overdue) upgrades that bring it closer than ever to its Pro siblings.
While the iPhone Air takes the honors as the biggest design innovation, and the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are rocking some intriguing camera upgrades, the fundamental improvements made to the iPhone 17 mean its starting $799 / £799 / AU$1,399 price tag now offers more value than ever before.
There are three key upgrades that make the iPhone 17 such an impressive update – keep reading for my breakdown.
This is the big one – as an iPhone fan, an Apple fan, a tech fan, I absolutely lit up when Apple announced that its ProMotion technology would finally come to the standard iPhone 17.
I and many other TechRadar writers have been practically begging Apple to ditch its 60Hz displays for years now. The low-refresh-rate screens on the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus were inexcusably outdated, and paled in comparison to the 120Hz screens on the Samsung Galaxy S25 and Google Pixel 10, not to mention on many more affordable Android handsets.
For reference, refresh rate refers to how often a display redraws the on-screen image, and a higher refresh rate makes animations and motion look much smoother.
Apple has also caught up with its main Android rivals by bringing an adaptive refresh rate to the iPhone 17. ProMotion isn’t just a fancy name for 120Hz – it adjusts the display’s rate between 1-120Hz depending on what’s happening on-screen, which also helps to preserve battery life.
In fairness, the new iPhone Air also gets ProMotion, but its A19 Pro chipset and starting price of $999 / £999 / AU$1,799 align it more with the iPhone 17 Pro than the iPhone 16 Plus it replaces. The Pro models have had ProMotion since the iPhone 13 Pro, which launched in 2021, so that’s somewhat less of a big deal.
I’m genuinely ecstatic to see this upgrade come to the iPhone 17 – but I do have to temper my excitement by recognizing that this is a long-overdue improvement. Still, the refresh rate race is finally over, and that’s something to celebrate.
A bigger display
The iPhone 17 inherits the enlarged 6.3-inch display from last year’s iPhone 16 Pro, matching this year’s iPhone 17 Pro. In fact, it seems that the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro now have the exact same display.
That’s a welcome improvement for Apple’s compact flagship phone – and the actual frame of the iPhone 17 is unlikely to be much bigger than the iPhone 16, as some of that extra screen size is reclaimed from shrunken-down bezels.
A larger screen means the iPhone 17 is better suited to watching videos, playing games, and multitasking. As long as the standard iPhone remains easily pocketable, I’m game for as high a screen-to-body ratio as we can get.
Longer battery life
Apple is normally pretty cagey about its devices’ battery specs, but this year the tech giant was even more guarded than usual. For example, the iPhone 17 was said to get eight more hours of video playback compared to the previous generation – which is kind of a massive deal when you dig up last year’s numbers.
The standard iPhone 16 is rated (by Apple) for 22 hours of continuous video playback. That would suggest the iPhone 17 can manage a full 30 hours – a massive 36% increase.
Keep in mind that this might not translate to a 36% larger battery capacity – some of that longevity will be due to the new, more efficient A19 chipset and software optimizations in iOS 26.
Still, if Apple’s figures prove accurate, that’ll be an absolute coup of an upgrade.
We’ll be testing the iPhone 17’s battery life, and all its other specs and features as soon as we can – for now, let us know what you think of the new iPhone lineup in the comments below.
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jamie.richards@futurenet.com (Jamie Richards)
