/ Four iPhones. Four completely different experiences.
Mateo Lowe leads the Best Picks desk of TheTweaks. All the buying guides, ranked lists and gift suggestions on this website pass through his hands. He is in an editorial position that requires editorial judgment and Mateo has this. He worked seven years in retail consultancy and product research before joining the team, advising brands on the real-life purchasing decision-making process of consumers. He was a natural fit because that background made him a good fit to work at a job as he is helping readers to spend their money wisely.
Every year Apple does the same thing. They take the stage and impress the audience by presenting the shiny new thing, and pitch each one as the best choice. When every product looks good, that’s where people end up buying the wrong one.
It was the same this year, except Apple made it more difficult. The iPhone 17 series was launched on September 19, 2025 and, for the first time, there were four different models to choose from: the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone Air and iPhone 17e. Four different prices. Four different personalities. And no room for error.
We spent time with all four. Here’s the info you really need to know, phone by phone, before you fork out a cent.
| Feature | iPhone 17 | iPhone 17 Air | iPhone 17 Pro | iPhone 17e |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $799 | $999 | $1,099 | $599 |
| Chip | A19 | A19 Pro | A19 Pro | A19 |
| Size | 5.89”x2.81”x0.31” | 6.15”x2.94”x 0.22” | 5.91”x2.83”x0.34” | 5.78”x2.82”x0.31” |
| Weight | 6.24lb | 5.82lb | 7.27lb | 5.96lb |
| Camera Setup | Dual 48MP | Single 48MP | Triple Pro cameras | Single 48MP |
| Battery Life | Excellent | Good | Best overall | Very good |
| Display | 6.3″ 120Hz | 6.5″ 120Hz | 120Hz ProMotion | Standard OLED |
| Biggest Strength | Best value | Ultra-thin premium feel | Cameras & performance | Cheapest entry |
| Biggest Weakness | Less “premium” feel | Smaller battery | Expensive | Fewer flagship features |
The iPhone 17 is now $799 for 256GB of storage. This is what Apple charged for 128GB of storage on the iPhone 16. This is one of Apple’s best value plays in recent years. Double the storage, OLED screen, far better battery. But the same price.
It’s easy to miss because the Air is sleeker and the Pro is more badass. But use the iPhone 17 as an everyday phone for a week and you just wonder why you’d pay that much. It’s quick, gorgeous to look at, lasts forever on a single charge and produces photos that are perfectly adequate for most uses. It’s a phone that wins without a major flaw.
The iPhone 17 has a dual 48 MP Fusion system, a main and an ultra-wide lens. Both 48 megapixels, an upgrade from previous iPhones that had a high-resolution main camera and a low-resolution secondary. The ultrawide lens is good for architecture, group portraits and landscape. It has a Sapphire crystal lens cover. Low light and distance see the Pro’s larger sensor and additional processing shine through. But for most of the photos you’ll want to take, this is more than enough (GSMArena).
The selling point of iPhone 17 is its battery and it’s not a bad one. Apple’s 30 hours of video playback claim is accurate. The leap from the iPhone 16’s 22 hours of playback is eight hours; the largest battery gain on a normal model phone Apple has announced in a long time. And if you need to charge, the 40W fast charger will take you from 0-50% in 20 minutes. Fear of running out of power will not be a thing of the future (AppleMagzine).
The 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR OLED with 120Hz ProMotion display is appearing on a non-Pro iPhone for the first time, and it’s a big deal. Animations look polished, and 3,000-nit peak brightness means text is easily readable in full, midday sun. Always-On Display is here too. Comparing it to the iPhone 17 Pro, the screens are essentially identical, with the same resolution, brightness and panel. Pro prices used to be paid for this quality display (GSMAera).
The A19 chip runs iOS 26, Apple Intelligence, real-time language translation, computational photography on camera, the best mobile games, and you won’t see any lag. Apple’s long software update policy means this phone will continue to be supported for many years to come.
Excellent camera, the best battery bump Apple has ever offered on a mainstream phone, a display on par with a flagship, and an impressive performance, at a price that makes sense. For a phone that’s good at everything and bad at nothing.
You can’t believe it until you hold it. But once you have it, you’re in trouble.
The iPhone Air is from $999 and is 5.6mm thin. The thinnest iPhone that Apple has ever produced, and one of the thinnest smartphones ever. It feels too light. It feels like a prop. And then you turn it on and you realize it’s absolutely real and you begin to doubt the legitimacy of all other phones.
It’s clear that the iPhone Air is a design-focused phone. But that doesn’t mean it’s not performance. It has the A19 Pro chip, the same one that’s in the iPhone 17 Pro, stuffed into an enclosure so thin that Apple needed to redesign the placement of the antennas, speakers and even the battery to make it all fit.
This is the tricky part of the iPhone Air review, because it’s really divisive. Apple only has room for one back camera, and it’s not because they’re cheap. It’s physics. The chassis is 5.6mm. It doesn’t have room for a camera array.
The single 48-megapixel Fusion lens is a marvel. In lab tests by DXOMARK, it’s very similar to the primary camera on the iPhone 17 Pro in terms of image quality: sharp outdoors, good in low light, natural when shooting portraits. But if you want to zoom more than 2x, or shoot a landscape wide or a macro close, you’re out of luck. There is no telephoto or ultrawide. You get one lens. If you are an occasional photographer who just wants to snap pics, the Air’s camera is fine. And if you want a phone camera that offers creative options, it’s a real deal breaker at this price.
The iPhone Air has a 3,149 mAh battery, the lowest in the Apple 2025 flagship phones, and that’s simply due to the 5.6mm thickness. But the power-efficiency of the A19 Pro helps. Apple claims 27 hours of video viewing, and that’s reflected in the real world with light-to-moderate use. You can expect to get you through a day easily. But if you do more, there’s gaming, long walks and more, and the battery begins to suffer. Apple’s $99 MagSafe Battery Pack is clearly targeted at Air users. It’s not a bad battery for this form factor. It’s just the most accurate trade-off the Air asks you to make (MacRumors).
The 6.5-inch Super Retina XDR display with 120Hz ProMotion in the Air deserves more attention. It’s a bigger screen than the typical iPhone 17, it has narrow bezels to make the experience immersive and brightness is good outside. It’s fun to watch video on this screen while holding something like a fringe. The display is not compromised for the slim design of the phone, it’s a full-spec screen.
The iPhone Air uses the same A19 Pro chip that Apple have in the iPhone 17 Pro, and in real-world use, it shows the CPU performance matches with the pro. Apple Intelligence performs well. The phone doesn’t get hot as you’d expect from such a thin phone. (MarkEllis Reviews).
Travelers, minimalists or anyone who simply can’t stand the thickness of today’s smartphones. If you’re not a serious photographer, but are highly sensitive to how a phone looks and feels in your hand and pocket, and would like something you can show off every time you take it out, the Air is for you.
NASA cleared this phone for crewed space missions. The iPhone 17 Pro Max became the first smartphone to leave Earth’s orbit on the Artemis II mission in April 2026.
The iPhone 17 Pro starts at $1,099 and to put it bluntly: if you’re upgrading your phone mainly for better camera quality, this is where the conversation begins and ends. All other phones in this line-up take a back seat when the Pro launches its camera app.
This year, Apple re-engineered the back of the phone into what they’re calling a “plateau”, a bar along the back of the phone. Before we go any further, one thing to note: this year the Pro switched from titanium to aluminum unibody, and some people have noted the device surface is more susceptible to scratches, the phenomenon they call “scratchgate”. This will be mitigated by a good case, but it’s something to be aware of.
Three 48MP lenses. Primary, ultra-wide and a periscope telephoto lens for 8x optical-quality zoom, the most zoom Apple has ever put in an iPhone. All three lenses have good low-light performance. The new 18MP Center Stage front camera is a huge improvement for selfies and FaceTime calls, it automatically re-crop the image as you move around and supports Dual Capture for simultaneous front and back cameras. The Pro is the only iPhone that supports ProRes and Apple Log 2 video formats, it’s a powerful tool for video production that requires post-processing (Amateur Photography).
One thing to keep in mind: Apple dropped night portrait mode from this generation of the Pro, which was a feature of every Pro from the 12 Pro to the 16 Pro. It’s an odd choice and photographers who use it will be disappointed. It won’t cripple the camera system, but it’s one to be aware of before making a purchase.
The iPhone 17 Pro supports 31 hours of video play, upgraded from the 27 hours of the 16 Pro. The Pro Max takes it to 39 hours, the best battery life rating for an iPhone. In everyday use, with full days of video shooting and multitasking, including gaming, reviewers have plenty of battery left at the end of the day. This is the first Pro generation in which you don’t have to worry about battery life.
The 6.3-inch Pro and 6.9-inch Pro Max screens are exactly the same as the standard iPhone 17, with the same 120Hz ProMotion, the same 3,000-nit peak brightness, and the same Always-On display. The Pro Max just has more screen, and if you spend a lot of time on your phone watching video, reading or creating content, that makes a difference over the course of a day. If you’re choosing between Pro and Pro Max based on the display, the Pro Max is bigger, but otherwise identical.
The A19 Pro chip has a 6-core GPU compared to the 4-core A19, and 12GB RAM (up from 8GB). That makes a noticeable difference in heavy processing tasks, long 4K video shoots, gaming, and in the background for Apple Intelligence. The vapor chamber cooling system keeps the Pro cooler under load than previous models.
The 17 Pro has the best camera Apple has ever put in a phone, is a real video professionals’ device, and will remain fast and supremely capable for years to come. The Pro Max is for you if you also demand the best battery life and don’t mind a bigger phone.
The iPhone 17e released on March 11, 2026 and costs $599 (256GB) and it’s become the most underrated phone. It’s the phone that you skip on the page and that’s wrong.
When you start using it for the first time, it doesn’t feel like a budget phone. The aluminum chassis is solid, the matte glass back is easy to grip and the new soft pink option is one of Apple’s best ones. It weighs just 170g. After a day with the 17e, the larger flagships in this range are heavy and unwieldy, particularly if you’re used to an older, fatter smartphone.
The 17e boasts a single 48MP Fusion camera, same branding used by the more expensive phones, and it’s well-deserved. It produces sharp images in daylight, with good colour accuracy (not too saturated), and the built-in 2x Telephoto means you have more options than most single-camera phones of its price class. But it struggles in low light. The image becomes grainy in poor lighting and doesn’t have the impressive photography of the Pro to reduce this effect.
In three weeks of testing, light-to-moderate users had about 50% of the battery left at the end of the day, which is a very good result for an affordable phone. If you game, use maps or have long videoconferences, though, you could be plugging in for dinner. It’s not a bad battery. It just isn’t a heavy user phone battery. The good news: The first low-cost iPhone with full Qi2, USB-C and now fast MagSafe wireless charging support, which means you can get an experience with no battery anxiety.
The 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR OLED haptic touch display makes photos bright (at up to 1,200 nits -HDR) and text sharp and clear. It just won’t go to 120Hz. That means scrolling will be less smooth than the rest of the series, and if you’ve ever used a ProMotion screen you’ll feel it right away.
The A19 chip is the main element here, and that is why the 17e is so much better than it should be for the price. The 3-nanometer chip easily delivers Apple Intelligence, complex apps and high-end games. More importantly, apps open quickly, it doesn’t slow down when multitasking, and this phone won’t feel like a slug after receiving a couple of years of updates. You’re getting a 2025 level chip for a $599 phone (Apple newsroom).
If you’re looking for a budget friendly option or are switching from Android to Apple for the first time, the 17e is an absolute yes. It offers you the full experience of the iPhone, without the flagship price tag. It won’t wow you in every feature but it will never let you down either.
If you interested in other Phones, Check out Motorola Razr Lineup, iPhone 17 Pro vs Pixel 10 Pro, Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold and Samsung Galaxy S26 Series.
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