The iPhone 17 series goes on sale on Friday, September 19, with preorders beginning a week before on Friday, September 12. Choosing one of the four models is harder than ever this year, considering the arrival of the ultra-thin iPhone Air. For $999, buyers get Apple’s thinnest iPhone ever, ready to deliver performance on par with the iPhone 17 Pro models. However, the iPhone Air comes with several compromises to create that ultra-thin profile. That’s exactly why the standard iPhone 17 might be a better choice than the Air, as it can offer a more versatile camera experience, better sound and battery life, and even a physical SIM slot in several international markets.
The cheapest iPhone 17 starts at $799 ($829 without a carrier discount) and comes with 256GB of storage. That’s double the storage of the base variant of last year’s iPhone 16. Apart from the storage bump, several new inclusions like an advanced display and a new selfie camera put the base iPhone 17 almost into the Pro territory — making it the most value-for-money iPhone this year. A major downside of the baseline iPhone all these years has been the fact that they’ve had 60Hz displays. Well, that changes with the iPhone 17. Both the iPhone 17 and iPhone Air have the same display technology as the more expensive iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max. The iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro share the same 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR display. Both phones feature the same 2622 x 1206 resolution, 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and up to 3000 nits of peak brightness.
The iPhone 17 has the same display as the iPhone 17 Pro
The key highlight, of course, is that the vanilla iPhone 17 also gets support for the 120Hz ProMotion display and Always-On display — features that were reserved for the Pro iPhone all these years. If you compare it to last year’s iPhone 16 Pro, the iPhone 17 display offers better peak brightness (3000 nits vs. 2000 nits) and comes with a seven-layer anti-reflective coating technology that reduces glare. Apple also improved the durability of the displays used in the iPhone 17 series by adding a Ceramic Shield 2 screen coating that’s twice as scratch and drop-resistant compared to the iPhone 16 series. That makes the $799 iPhone 17 more durable than even last year’s iPhone 16 Pro models.
It’s not just the display tech that puts the iPhone 17 in the same league as the iPhone 17 Pros. The $799 iPhone features almost the same camera experience. The handset has two 48-megapixel cameras (main and ultra-wide) and the new 18-megapixel Center Stage selfie camera. A quick comparison on Apple’s website gives you the main advantages of the iPhone 17 Pro over the base model. The Pros have a third 48-megapixel telephoto camera that offers better zoom, and they support a few modes like ProRaw photography, ProRes RAW video recording, Apple Log 2, etc., that professionals will appreciate. If these improvements do not mean anything to you, the $799 iPhone 17 is the way to go.
Better battery life than the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro
Another important factor when choosing a new phone is battery life. Apple gave the iPhone 17 a massive boost over last year’s model. Here’s how the iPhone 17 compares to the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 16, and iPhone 16 Pro, according to Apple:
Video playback:
- iPhone 17 – Up to 30 hours
- iPhone 17 Pro – Up to 33 hours
- iPhone 16 – Up to 22 hours
- iPhone 16 Pro – Up to 27 hours
Video playback (streamed):
- iPhone 17 – Up to 27 hours
- iPhone 17 Pro – Up to 30 hours
- iPhone 16 – Up to 18 hours
- iPhone 16 Pro – Up to 22 hours
Both the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro support faster wired charging. A 40W power adapter takes 20 minutes to charge the battery to 50%. The zoom camera, pro shooting modes, and improved battery life are three of the $1,099 iPhone 17 Pro’s main advantages over the $799 iPhone 17. The iPhone 17 Pro also features a more powerful chip — the A19 Pro instead of the A19 — so if you play demanding games or edit videos on your phone, you will appreciate the added performance boost. You also get vapor chamber cooling to supplement that performance, a first for the iPhone. The bottom line is simple: The $799 iPhone 17 is easily the best choice for budget-conscious buyers looking for a brand-new iPhone this Friday. The baseline iPhone has never been this close to the Pro.
