The thought of “tyranny of alternative” says that having a set of fine selections is meant to let everybody discover precisely what makes them most completely satisfied, however the actuality is that having so many good selections can usually result in anxiousness, indecisiveness, and discontent. If we apply this idea to the iPhone 17 lineup, then Apple is sort of the tyrant this 12 months.
In any case, the bottom mannequin iPhone 17 is extra professional than ever and presents the perfect value-for-money in 2025. The iPhone 17 Professional and Professional Max have addressed the 2 largest weak spots of final 12 months’s Professional fashions. And the iPhone Air provides you an opportunity to make use of tomorrow’s expertise right this moment.
I’ve upgraded my iPhone yearly for the reason that first iPhone in 2007 and I’ve spent hands-on time with all 4 of this 12 months’s iPhone fashions. And but, my shopping for recommendation this 12 months is wildly completely different than every other 12 months up to now. And there are a number of the explanation why.
Let’s unpack it by every of the product traces, in addition to who I would suggest as the perfect upgrader for every one.
The $799 iPhone 17 fits extra folks than ever
Don’t sleep on the bottom mannequin iPhone 17 this 12 months.
In recent times I principally relegated my suggestions of the bottom mannequin iPhone to youngsters, youngsters, first-time iPhone customers, and individuals who simply wanted a telephone that may work as a result of their outdated telephone had a cracked display or a battery that would not maintain a cost — they usually needed to restrict how a lot they spent on a telephone.
Not so this 12 months.
The truth that Apple poured so many upgrades into the iPhone 17 was the shock of the 2025 Apple Occasion for me. To start with, Apple lastly did a significant facelift to the iPhone 17’s display expertise, kicking it as much as 6.3-inches (from 6.1 final 12 months) with thinner bezels, 120Hz ProMotion show, 3000 nits of peak brightness, an anti-reflective coating, and an always-on show.
Apple additionally upgraded the cameras on the iPhone 17, transferring to a 48MP twin fusion digicam with a 48MP important digicam and 48MP ultrawide. Plus, the iPhone 17 will get the identical upgraded selfie digicam expertise because the Professionals and Air get this 12 months. That is a 24MP sq. sensor that successfully shoots 18MP photographs in both portrait or panorama mode and may now mechanically change between the 2 with out forcing you to flip your telephone.
Even higher, you’ll be able to let the digicam use machine studying to seek out all of the faces within the shot and mechanically use portrait or panorama mode to get the perfect photograph. Kudos to Apple for not retaining this new digicam tech within the Professional telephones solely this 12 months.
Apple additionally stored the value of the iPhone 17 at $799 whereas elevating the bottom storage from 128GB to 256GB. Final 12 months, 256GB of storage on the iPhone 16 would have put the value of the telephone at $899. From that perspective, Apple successfully gave the iPhone 17 a $100 worth minimize. Likewise, the iPhone 17’s two largest Android rivals, the Pixel 10 and the Samsung Galaxy S25 nonetheless begin with 128GB of storage on their base fashions and each value $799.
From one other perspective, this 12 months’s iPhone 17 is almost equivalent to final 12 months’s iPhone 16 Professional, besides that it does not have the telephoto zoom, nevertheless it provides the next-gen selfie digicam and the dual-capture digicam. And final 12 months’s iPhone 16 Professional began at $999 for 128GB of storage and $1,099 for 256GB.
Consequently, there are folks I’d have beforehand really helpful to go for the iPhone Professional line who I am very completely satisfied to suggest the iPhone 17 base mannequin to as an alternative this 12 months, saving them a pair hundred {dollars}. In the event you’re somebody who does not use the telephoto zoom very a lot and also you’re coming from an iPhone 14 Professional or an iPhone 13 Professional (or earlier), then I would suggest contemplating the iPhone 17 this 12 months. It is a way more highly effective and critical telephone now.
The iPhone Air presents a style of the long run
The iPhone Air steps right into a little bit of a cursed place within the iPhone lineup between the bottom mannequin and Professionals — a spot the place the iPhone 12-13 Mini and the iPhone 14-16 Plus fashions all struggled to generate a lot curiosity over the previous half decade.
Like Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge, the iPhone Air is taken into account a expertise demonstration of simply how skinny its engineers could make a telephone as a precursor to a leap ahead in foldables — the Fold 7 in Samsung’s case.
So the iPhone Air is not simply haunted by the previous, it is also standing within the shadow of the long-awaited foldable iPhone that is broadly anticipated to launch within the fall of 2026.
Nonetheless, the iPhone Air is undoubtedly the one which generated the most important wow issue when holding it in my fingers. It is tremendous spectacular how skinny, gentle, and futuristic it feels. I would encourage you to enter an Apple Retailer or one of many wi-fi provider shops beginning on Sept. 19 to see should you get the identical emotional response to holding a telephone that’s mainly the width of a USB-C port.
There isn’t any doubt that it is some of the spectacular technological achievements of 2025. However do you have to purchase it?
For the overwhelming majority of iPhone upgraders, I am nonetheless going to say no — not when the bottom mannequin iPhone 17 has higher cameras and prices much less. And should you’re a real energy consumer, then you definately’re not going to be glad with the battery life or the cameras on the iPhone Air.
However should you’re somebody who likes to dwell on the slicing fringe of tech and run forward of the pack, you are in all probability going to be fairly giddy whenever you put your fingers on the iPhone Air. You are in all probability somebody who would have liked to put on Google Glass or the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional and also you’re one of many main candidates to get the iPhone Fold in 2026. The iPhone Air will allow you to dwell in that future. Simply be sure to order the should you commonly use your telephone for greater than about 4 hours a day.
The iPhone 17 Professional Max solves massive issues
The iPhone 16 Professional Max and the iPhone 15 Professional Max are two telephones that I’ve liked utilizing through the previous two years. I particularly liked utilizing the principle digicam on these telephones to take extra photographs than every other smartphone digicam and even my skilled Sony mirrorless digicam over the previous two years.
However I additionally struggled with the identical two issues on each of these telephones.
First, the zoom digicam was merely lower than the identical commonplace of high quality as the principle digicam — as a lot I needed it to be as a result of I like zoom pictures. Pictures taken on the 5x telephoto (first launched on the iPhone 15 Professional fashions) had been okay for social media, however the high quality would sometimes crumble once I began enhancing them. So I commonly needed to attain for my Sony mirrorless each time I needed high-quality zoom photographs. In the meantime, I have been printing high-quality photographs from the iPhone’s important digicam for over a decade.
The opposite massive downside I had with the 2 titanium iPhone 15 and 16 Professional Max telephones over the previous two years was common overheating. Every time I used to be doing a variety of photograph or video taking pictures, once I was in crowded city areas with weak wi-fi alerts, or once I had the telephone out within the solar for prolonged durations, these two Professional Max telephones would get extremely scorching. And once they overheated, the battery would begin to drain in a short time.
That is positively not the dynamic you wish to see from an costly, high-end telephone.
I used to be thrilled that Apple has addressed each issues within the iPhone 17 Professional Max — in addition to the iPhone 17 Professional, which is similar actual telephone besides that it has a 6.3-inch display as an alternative of a 6.9-inch display and a smaller battery.
Let’s speak in regards to the thermals first. Apple has changed titanium and gone again to aluminum for the casing of the iPhone 17 Professional Max. Aluminum could be as much as 5-10 occasions more practical at conducting and dispersing warmth than titanium. However Apple additionally added a vapor chamber cooling system that makes use of deionized water to chill the telephone’s A19 Professional chip and permit it to run at most energy whereas not overheating.
I must do a variety of testing over weeks and months, however I am very inspired that the iPhone 17 Professional Max addresses the overheating difficulty head-on in its design.
On the subject of the telephoto zoom digicam, I am additionally inspired by the best way Apple has addressed this within the iPhone 17 Professional Max. First, Apple upgraded its tetraprism zoom from a 12MP sensor to a 48MP sensor, matching the 48MP sensor on the principle digicam. Then, Apple made this a 4x sensor (reasonably than 5x), which gave the impression to be a curious downgrade at first.
Nevertheless, having extra pixels enabled an 8x zoom cropped to 12MP, which Apple boldly referred to as an optical high quality 8x. Luckily, I acquired to attempt it out, and I am impressed by what I’ve seen thus far. Beneath is an instance of what the 8x zoom lens is able to, and it is increased high quality than any zoom shot I’ve taken with an iPhone earlier than.
After all, I will must do much more testing with the zoom digicam earlier than I can say whether or not it is able to tackle extra of my on a regular basis zoom pictures. I am additionally going to match it with the Pixel 10 Professional XL zoom, which I am additionally testing. Like final 12 months, I plan to do a devoted evaluation of the brand new iPhone 17 Professional digicam system. So hold an eye fixed out for that in early October.
However, I am now going to make a advice that I’ve by no means made earlier than — with an asterisk. In the event you had been like me and bumped into numerous overheating and zoom issues with the iPhone 15 Professional Max and even the iPhone 16 Professional Max, I believe chances are you’ll wish to think about the potential of a more-rapid-than-usual improve to the iPhone 17 Professional Max this 12 months.
Once more, I will do extra testing earlier than I definitively make that advice, however I wish to put it in your radar. I will be doing extra rigorous testing over the approaching weeks and I will report again. I will additionally hold an eye fixed out for some good trade-in offers which may ease the blow of a fast improve.
