Apple iPhone 17 Pro review: Flagship iOS device back in aluminium

Last week, we reviewed iPhone 17; this time, let's take a look at the iPhone 17 Pro. Priced at Rs 1,34,990 for the base 256GB variant, here's how my experience has been with the device...

Apple has gone back to aluminium for the Pro series, and the iPhone 17 Pro is heavier and slightly thicker than the iPhone 16 Pro.

It's safe to say the thermal management wasn't the best over the last two generations. Apple couldn't get that right with the material, so they have switched to aluminium again.

Experiencing the iPhone 17 Pro

The phone has rounded edges that feel more curved than before, while the back has Ceramic Shield plus glass coating cutout at the bottom for wireless induction charging, which kind of reminds me of that MagSafe wallet Apple had launched a while back.

The front has improved Ceramic Shield 2 on top. The right side houses the volume buttons and camera button near the middle; on the left side, you have the smaller power/lock key between the Action button and SIM card tray.

At the bottom, you have the primary mic, USB Type-C port and one outlet for loudspeakers. The phone isn't light or too heavy at 204grams, but it isn't compact by any means, and I don't think it's meant to be this time.

The back, other than that cutout, has the Apple logo, which is barely visible at some angles on the Silver colour I tried, but a little more prominent in the new Orange and Blue colours. There's the protruding triple camera system that seems to be the new signature look of the Pro models, and the LED flash and LiDAR scanner.

Coming to the 6.3-inch full HD+ (2622x1206) OLED display, it is not much different here from the earlier generation—it is sharp, has great colour reproduction and is usable outdoors without much trouble. You get 120Hz higher refresh rates, and it works well for scrolling and gaming requirements. 

Pro's camera system

Talking about the triple camera system, you get a 48MP (f/1.78) main camera, a 48MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide camera, and a 48MP (f/2.8) telephoto camera on the back. The phone does really well stitched zoom shots till 4x and even 8x in suitable conditions here, but till 4x, it really shines.

The camera app allows you to shoot ProRes videos at 4K, but with an external storage disk connected. The 18MP (f/2.8) front camera is quick to take shots and does centre stage for taking group shots a little more accurately in terms of changing aspect ratio as compared to the standard iPhone 17. Video quality here is top-notch with good detailing and stabilisation when moving to shoot your videos, something Apple has excelled at for a while now.

Processing master

The phone is equipped with the new A19 Pro chipset (up to 4.26Ghz six-core CPU, six-core GPU) with 16-core neural engine and 12GB of RAM alongside 1TB internal storage (also comes in 256GB and 512GB). It's running iOS 26.0.1.

The recent update seems to have fixed some big issues, including the Spotlight Search bug that I had mentioned in the iPhone 17 review, which is nice to see.

The phone is really smooth and responsive in pretty much whatever is thrown at it. There's a vapour chamber cooling system inside, which we have seen Android OEMs do for years, and now Apple has embraced it. The thermal management this time is certainly better than the last 2 generations, when fast charging, gaming or continuously using a hotspot. It still gets warm, but nothing close to alarming any time.

For gaming, you can expect to play a game like Resident Evil 4 at 60FPS consistently and Fortnite at a higher 120FPS, though it can drop frames from that high count at times.

The device is powered by a 4,252mAh battery unit, and it can now be charged at 40 watts max. Using a compatible fast charger, it took close to 1.5 hours to charge it from 1 per cent to full. The phone lasted me a whole day and then some, even on moderate to heavy use days.

WiFi performance on the device was a little choppy to begin with, but the latest update seems to have fixed it. 5G network reception is good too, but I have got better network performance from Android flagships for working on the go. Loudspeakers in this phone are plenty loud with good depth for music playback and gaming indoors. Call quality was never a problem on either side with respect to the mic and audio in-ear.

In a nutshell, Apple's new iPhone 17 Pro is a beefier and chunkier Pro model that is meant to handle heavy use without showing any thermal issues and keeping battery life in check, too. It has a great camera setup, reliable performance and solid battery life to top out Apple's new design language.

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