With upgrades once reserved for the Pro, the iPhone 17 feels like anything but entry-level.
Apple today introduced the iPhone 17, the entry-level model in this year’s lineup. If you thought it was going to be a ho-hum upgrade compared to the iPhone 17 Pro and Air, you’re going to be surprised. The iPhone 17 is a solid upgrade with a brighter display, faster chip, and longer battery life. And at the same price as its predecessor, it’s a far better value than we expected.
Here are five new iPhone 17 features that make it stand out.A brighter, smoother display
The iPhone 17 finally brings ProMotion to the non-Pro line, delivering a 120Hz refresh rate for smoother scrolling and gameplay. That also enables an always-on display, another feature exclusive to Pro for many years. But that’s not all, because the screen has also increased from 6.1 to 6.3 inches.
Apple says the new OLED Super Retina XDR panel can hit 3,000 nits of peak brightness, paired with an anti-reflective coating for better visibility outdoors. More than that, iPhone 17 introduces Ceramic Shield 2 with better scratch resistance.
In everyday use, that’s a massive upgrade over the iPhone 16 with several features that easily could have stayed exclusive to the Pro line.The more efficient A19 chip
Under the hood, the iPhone 17 runs on Apple’s new A19 chip, a 6-core CPU with a GPU up to 2 times faster than the A15 GPU inside the iPhone 13.
