iPhone 17 Pro after 10 months: The truth before iPhone 18 Pro

It’s been nearly 10 months since the launch of the iPhone 17 series, and for the last eight of these months, I’ve used the iPhone 17 Pro as my daily driver. I also used the iPhone Air for two months before that, and while I really loved it, I switched to the Pro for the zoom camera.

Now, with the iPhone 18 Pro right around the corner with an expected September launch, I share my final thoughts about the iPhone 17 Pro: what's the wear and tear, the battery life, as well as the things I love and dislike about this phone.

Wear and tear

First, a word about smartphone sizes. I’m really happy that I chose the 6.3-inch size over the 6.9-inch Pro Max. The larger size would have been way too big and bulky. My advice here? If your only reason to consider the Pro Max is the larger battery, but you otherwise find it uncomfortably big, getting the more comfortable Pro model will actually make your life a lot easier. At least, that's my experience.

One of the key improvements of the iPhone 17 Pro is the Ceramic Shield 2 coating on the front. Apple says it has three times better scratch protection and after all of my use, well, this was not a lie. I’ve been using the phone with no screen protector and not babying it at all, and there is not a single scratch on the display. Impressive.

Compared to an iPhone 16 Pro that I used for a much shorter period, its screen has a number of small scratches. And in the video above, I also showcase the iPhone 14 Plus display after only a few weeks of use, and it has plenty of scratches. The iPhone 17, in contrast, is almost miraculously good.

The new anti-reflective coating is also a noticeable improvement to previous iPhones, but I still think Apple is behind Samsung on this one. The Galaxy S26 Ultra just kills off those reflections remarkably well, and if you use your phone outdoors a lot, you will definitely notice how Samsung looks much better.

As for the switch from titanium to aluminum, I am not convinced. If you game a lot, it makes sense. After all, aluminum dissipates heat better, so the phone won’t overheat as much. But for just average daily use, if you don’t have a case on, aluminum is much softer and will dent much easier.

One final thought looks-wise: I don't mind the design, but it’s bordering on being on the thick side. This is especially obvious in a direct comparison with the latest Samsung phones, which are much thinner. Worryingly, the latest rumors claim that next iPhones will get even thicker than the current one. I love good battery life, but I think this might be pushing it.

Buttons

The physical buttons on iPhones are very underrated, if you ask me. On the 17 Pro, I use camera control all the time to quick-start the camera and capture impromptu moments that I would otherwise miss. Apple is rumored to get rid of swipe support on that button in the iPhone 18 series, but I am not worried about that. I actually think that’s a good call. Swiping on the Camera Control is just too finicky, few people use it and it's simply easier to achieve the same thing on the much bigger display instead.

As for the Action button, I have set it to open ChatGPT (insert your AI provider of choice), and it’s another huge time saver. 

My Android-toting friends point out that they have a double-click to open the camera and a long-press to open Gemini, but that's usually not customizable at all. On iPhones, you can customize the camera control to open any third-party app. And the Action Button can be assigned to anything, unlike Android phones that are just stuck with Gemini. Android was once the platform of choice and customization, but these days seem to be long over.

iOS and performance

I have mixed feelings about iOS, but I still prefer Apple's interface to the Android one. It's telling that all Android phone makers shamelessly copy many iOS features: the control center, the camera app interface, and so on.

But I have had numerous issues with essential apps on Android phones. Things like the Photos app, for example, are typically very basic on many of the top-tier Android phones from China. Even simple apps like the stock Weather app is often filled with ads on some Android phones.

I’ve also tried the iOS 27 beta with the new Siri, which finally works like a chatbot that can actually answer questions. But would I realistically use it? I think it’s still behind the latest ChatGPT or Gemini models, so I’d rather stick with those at the moment. I'm glad that Apple is finally catching up on that front, though.

A few words about performance on the iPhone 17 Pro. Honestly, it’s just fine, but I have noticed that iOS 27 makes it all looks much snappier, so I can’t wait for the final version to arrive in September. On iOS 26, I have noticed some slight stutter here and there, but most of the time, everything just runs fine.

Battery life

After seven months of use, my battery health is at... 99% and 170 cycles. I think that’s slightly better than previous iPhones. Note that I do not use the charging limiter. For context, this is an option Apple implemented a few years earlier that allows you to set a limit, so the phone won't charge to 100%, but it can stop at 90% or 80%. This is done to preserve long-term battery health, as those last charging moments are what seems to be doing the most damage on the battery. 

However, an unprecedented long-term test by brilliant YouTubers from HTX  Studio found that fast charging does not seem to kill your battery faster, so the effect of a charging limiter is also likely not all that massive.

For me, iPhone 17 Pro battery life has been consistent all of this time.

I am mostly using the phone for social media, texting and some browsing, and on two of the days I took for example here, I used roughly 50% of battery with around 2 hours and a half of screen time. This means that with typical use, you can get about 5 hours of screen time on a single charge.

That’s fine, but it definitely proves that with normal use, the iPhone 17 Pro just does NOT last more than a single day on one charge.

Speaking of charging, the 17 Pro upgraded to 40 watt speeds, the first such major bump in speed in years. However, I still find this one of the more annoying features of iPhones as it's quite slow, especially coupled with the average battery life. We have the example of most Chinese brands that support ultra-fast 100W charging, so there is definitely room for improvement here.

Camera

As for camera, I really like the consistency of the iPhone 17 Pro. I’ve used some of the camera centric phones out of China like the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, but while I appreciate the technology, I find the colors to be a bit inconsistent and the look can be too moody.

Photos from phones like the Xiaomi 17T Pro here can look inconsistent | Images by PhoneArena

The iPhone 17 Pro gives you very good photos all the time. Are they perfect? No, and if I let my innter camera nerd speak, he would say they look generic and lacking in character, but that doesn’t make them bad.

Here are some of my favorite photos I took lately, first with some photos from the beach nearby where I live, and then some photos from my travels lately.

Photos from my travels | Images by PhoneArena

And I also really love iPhone panoramas. They just look incredible, take a look at these few.

Now, when I say the photos may lack character, I’ve actually played around with a few camera apps that fix that. My favorite is an app called No Fusion (this is not a sponsored mention, I just genuinely love the results). You can customize the controls in the camera app, it’s much more intuitive than the default app and you can get dreamy photos like the below ones easily.

NoFusion App Photos

Video quality also remains one of the things why people buy iPhones. I personally don’t really tamper with the ProRes format at all, but even just using the default settings you get clean footage and cinematic mode also works really well to blur the background and give you a look you can easily mistake for a dedicated camera.

And speaking of all that, one word of advice for storage, I’m really happy I opted for the 512GB model, I already have used 290GB of that and that’s without even transferring many of my old photos, so if you take lots of pictures and videos, I think 512GB is the model you should get.

My buying advice

The iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max are expected to arrive in just over a month, in September, and all the leaks and rumors suggest these will look and feel a lot like the current iPhone 17 Pro series.

However, the one big change is that prices are expected to go up significantly. Some rumors say the base iPhone Pro price will jump by a whopping $200 (up from $1,100 to $1,300).

Among the changes, rumors suggest a smaller Dynamic Island and the first variable aperture on the main camera, but are these changes really worth the price hike? The phones are also expected to get even thicker, but also with a slightly better battery life.

I think all of this points to one thing: get the iPhone 17 Pro now, while the prices have still not gone up significantly.

I'm also curious to learn about your experience with the iPhone 17 Pro in the comments, what have you liked and what do you wish changed?