Hands-on: iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max push super-zoom smartphone camera tech to its limits

The newly-revealed iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max handsets have a lot to prove this year. The top-tier premium models in Apple’s annually-updated smartphone line-up usually lord it over everything else announced during the company’s September showcase, but things are a bit different this year.

First up, the entry-level iPhone 17 handset has come out swinging with a top-notch new display that puts it on a par with its pricier siblings, and some smart selfie camera features that’ll give it mass-market appeal. Then there’s the all-new iPhone 17 Air which will make up for what it lacks in the most cutting edge camera features of the Pro line up with a design so thin and light it needs to be seen to be believed.

The strength of the range overall means that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max really have to push that ‘Pro’ part of their names to tempt your wallet open to their pricier demands. Thankfully, Apple’s pulled it off — these are lustworthy devices with oodles of power, incredible cameras and slickly redesigned externals that really catch the eye. But you’ll be forgiven for putting a sideways glance in the direction of the Air and entry-level models this year, too.

We’ve been hands-on with all the new iPhones — here’s what you need to know about the premium iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max handsets.

Design: A unibody build and a ‘plateau’ in your pocket

Apple’s Pro-level iPhones have received a significant upgrade with their new designs — and see the greatest departure from last year’s model when taking a look at the handsets from the rear. The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max each feature a new, oblong-shaped camera block that goes right across the top of their rear panels, something Apple is calling the “plateau.” It’s a look that may feel familiar to those who’ve looked at Google’s rival Pixel devices, which feature a similarly-raised portion to house cameras on the rear, too.

It’s quite different to the square-shaped camera block that usually sits on the back of the Pro iPhones, something that’s been a consistent feature of every Pro-level iPhone since the iPhone 11 Pro. While the three rear cameras themselves maintain their triangular orientation, the new design offers a more spacious layout. With new larger sensors and more advanced imaging technology onboard, it makes sense that Apple has put aside a bit more room here to fit it all in. And personally, I’m not against the larger bump on the rear, given it’s now uniformly sized across the back rather than asymmetrically adding some heft to just one side of the handset.

The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max also make use of a brushed aluminium unibody design — a first for the company — stepping back from the titanium frame Apple pushed hard in the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro. Along with a newly-designed internal vapour chamber, this aluminium unibody helps to better disperse heat across the device, keeping it from getting too toasty in the hand. Combined, they deliver what Apple considers its best-ever thermal performance in an iPhone. Apple reckons the aluminium in use here offers a 20x thermal performance boost over the titanium used in previous models.

Finishing off the external design is Apple’s new second-generation Ceramic Shield glass. It’s Apple’s durable proprietary composite used to protect the display — and this year it’s present on the front and rear of the iPhone 17 Pro, giving the back panel its two-tone look. It helps make this the most durable Pro-grade device Apple’s ever made, with the Ceramic Shield gen 2 4x better at protecting against cracks, and offering 3x better defence against scratches too compared to the previous generation. Those screens remain essentially the same as on previous Pro models, with 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate and coming in at 6.3 and 6.9-inch sizes, depending on if you go for the Pro or Pro Max size options.

Three different colour finishes will be offered across the board. Silver and Deep Blue are the attractive, if conservative options — but the bolder and likely to be most popular choice is the in-your-face Cosmic Orange, which nods to the orange accents found on Apple’s Vision Pro headset.

Cameras: Zooming to the front of the pack

Here’s where the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max start pulling away not only from their iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air stablemates, but the Android competition too. The camera tech squeezed into that plateau is, frankly, a bit mad.

Both the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro Max feature 48MP ‘Fusion’ telephoto camera with a crazy 8x optical zoom. That’s a significant jump over 3x and 5x optical zooms found in the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro generations respectively, and will see Apple going toe-to-toe with the 50MP / 5x optical zoom of the rival Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. With a 56% larger main sensor, the iPhone 16 Pro can zoom to 4x at 100mm and 8x at 200mm, letting the iPhone blow up a scene eight times its original size. Digital zoom now goes to a wild 40x too. Combined, the Fusion lens options are “equivalent of eight pro lenses in your pocket”, says Apple.

It doesn’t stop there either. Flip the camera around and the selfie option gets a boost too. Jumping from 12MP to 18MP, the front-facing camera is now called the ‘Center Stage’ camera, and has some AI-enabled tricks of its own. Making use of a square sensor, it can now intelligently judge a scene to see what your intention is — whether that’s to take a glamorous solo shot, or squeezing in a bundle of mates — and use the ultra-wide lens on offer to smartly crop in a portrait or extend to a landscape shot to keep all your pals in focus.

You can also use the rear and front-facing cameras together in a new ‘Dual Capture’ mode that captures from both lenses at once. You’ll be able to record both what you’re looking at, and your own reaction to events at the same time, automatically edited into a single video clip. It’ll be great for those key life moments, and for quick on-the-go reaction videos for content creators.

The most demanding of filmmakers also get access to ProRes RAW Capture and Genlock, which makes accurate and professional looking transitions without needing painstaking frame alignment, via a BlackMagic accessory.

Internal specs: A19 Pro efficiency

Top tier iPhones always get Apple’s flashiest chipset, and this year’s no exception. The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max both get the all-new A19 Pro chipset, Apple’s most capable mobile processing unit ever. This year, however, the handsets have to share that distinction with the iPhone 17 Air, which also gets the A19 Pro, making the choice between the different tiers of iPhone a bit of a closer race than in recent generations.

So what’s the A19 offering? Apple’s homegrown silicon packs in a 6-core CPU and 6-core GPU, which ‘faster and more efficient’ than the A18 Pro found in last year’s flagships. The key word there might be ‘efficiency’ — though there are gains to 3D performance and on-device AI compute speeds, the thermal design here means the A19 Pro can sustain that high performance for 40% longer than previous generations, which would need to throttle sooner to keep them from overheating. The A19 can be pushed harder for longer, making it more capable for high-end processes like graphically-intensive games or video editing applications.

Also introduced across the iPhone 17 line-up is the new N1 connectivity chip, which packs in Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread connections. It’s again faster and more efficient than what was seen in previous handsets, meaning features like AirDrop and Personal Hotspot are more performant and reliable.

Battery life: Apple’s best ever phone battery

While Apple didn’t share specifics when it came to battery capacity in the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro Max, it did claim that the iPhone 17 Pro Max will offer “the longest battery life of any iPhone model ever. With internal changes freeing up space for a larger battery, it’s now quoting 39 hours of video playback per charge.

If you opt for an eSim only version of the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, that battery life quote jumps a touch higher too. By exactly how much is unclear, but the space freed up by a lack of a physical sim card affords Apple the opportunity to squeeze in a larger battery in those models.

Price and availability

The iPhone 17 Pro starts at $1,099 / £1,099, while the iPhone 17 Pro Max starts at $1,199 / £1,199. That’s for the 256GB storage capacity, while Apple also offers pricier 512GB and 1TB models too. Go for the iPhone 17 Pro Max and there’s a 2TB model that hits a whopping $1,999 / £1,999 price tag.

The iPhone 17 Pro models are offering up crazy specs then, and will be coveted particularly by demanding photographers and videographers. It’ll be interesting though to see whether it’s these models, or the iPhone 17 Air, which captures the imagination of the masses though.

• Hands-on: iPhone 17 Air is the biggest change to hit iPhone in a decade — and is a super-slim sight to behold