Apple iPhone 17 review
Display
The display upgrade is definitely a highlight of the iPhone 17. Not only is it larger this time around, at 6.3 inches, and with thinner bezels, but it is also much brighter and finally features Apple's Pro Motion high refresh rate technology, which was previously reserved only for the Pro models.
It is an enormous step up from its iPhone 16 predecessor, and in our mind, finally makes the vanilla iPhone 17 a truly premium phone.
Let's look at some brightness numbers first. The iPhone 17 achieved 824 nits by maxing out the brightness slider in manual mode - a tad less than the iPhone 16. That's a bit peculiar, but it might be due to slightly different tuning with newer iOS versions.
When it comes to the maximum automatic brightness, the new iPhone 17 manages just over 1,000 nits of sustained brightness. This is somewhat disappointing and significantly lower than what we measured on the iPhone 16, and indeed, what we expected.
There is a caveat to this - the iPhone 17 can achieve a brightness of over 1,700 nits by reducing the window size to 75%, but can only sustain it for approximately two seconds. After that, the brightness drops to 1,012 nits, or so. So, technically, the panel is capable of at least as much brightness as the one on the iPhone 16, but the tuning and logic have just changed.
Max display brightness test
White test pattern, 75% fill (nits)
- Manual mode
- Auto mode
Realme GT 7 Pro
Oppo Find X8 Ultra
Infinix Note 50 Pro 4G
iPhone 17
iPhone 17 Pro
Galaxy A06
Galaxy A07 4G
In practice, we found that even these 1,000 nits proved enough for the phone to be usable outdoors. The display's anti-reflective surface helps a lot in this regard. That said, the iPhone 17 is far from being an industry leader in the brightness department.
In keeping with its pedigree, the iPhone 17 supports both HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Apple handles its HDR video playback in a very flexible manner, as it's not necessary for the content to be displayed full screen for HDR to work. It can work only on the portion of the display where the video is playing.
Saving what is arguably the best for last here - Apple has finally trickled high refresh rates down to the non-Pro models. Better still, the new iPhone 17 doesn't just offer a high refresh rate but also dynamic refresh rate switching thanks to LTPO tech. The iPhone 17 will happily drop to 1Hz to conserve power and play video at 60Hz.
Consequently, there was no longer anything stopping Apple from bringing its Always On display to the vanilla iPhone and it fianlly got that feature.
Battery life
The iPhone 17 features a 3,692 mAh battery - slightly larger than the one found in the iPhone 16. In our standardized Active Use Score, the new iPhone 17 is very close to its predecessor. That's actually pretty common behavior for Apple - to strive to maintain the same battery life in its phones and adjust the other components around that goal.
With around fifteen hours in our testing, the iPhone 17 offers great battery life for its size. That said, the individual test number distribution is slightly different this time around. The iPhone 17 managed slightly lower web browsing numbers than its predecessor, which is easily explainable by the newfound high refresh rate of the display. The game and video streaming tests are still conducted at 60Hz, which is why they are not significantly affected.
Charging speed
The iPhone 17 series finally bring some improvements to charging speed, ushering in a new charging standard. Or, rather, it's popularizing a fairly recent addition to the USB Power Delivery spec, called AVS. Apple makes one adapter that explicitly adheres to that specific part of the protocol, the brand new and woefully named 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max charger, which is only available in North America for the time being. Google's pretty recent 'Pixel Flex Dual Port 67W USB-C Fast Charger' also explicitly lists AVS on the tin, and we just got a hold of that one, so we tested with it.
Apple promises the Pro Max will get to 50% in 20 minutes when using its new adapter, though it does allow the possibility that other adapters might achieve the same feat "Up to 50% charge in 20 minutes with 40W adapter or higher (available separately) paired with USB-C charging cable", the official specs say.
Testing with the Google charger, we only achieved around 40% charge in 20 minutes, which is short of the advertised. Still, 30 minutes on the same charger resulted in 63% charge, which is decent all things considered. A full charge, from 1% to 100%, took 1 hour and 25 minutes. The phone and charger agreed on a 15V/3A 45W current, and our meter maxed out at 29W while the battery was still close to empty, gradually decreasing, as usual.
We managed to find some charging numbers for the iPhone 17 using the special Apple charger. These, as expected, are not too far off from the ones we got with the Google charger. However, a full charge took ten minutes less, at around 1 hour and 14 minutes. We'll make sure to try and replicate that once we get our hands on said charger.
Charging speed
- in 15 min
- in 30 min
- Time to full charge (from 0%)
Poco F7 Ultra
iPhone 17 Pro Max
vivo X200 Ultra
iPhone 17
iPhone 16
Pixel 10
Pixel 10 Pro
The vanilla iPhone 17 also supports fast and modern MagSafe/Qi2 wireless charging at up to 25W (15W in China). Apple promises a 50% charge in 30 minutes on a compatible wireless charger.
Speakers - loudness and quality
The Apple iPhone 17 features a hybrid stereo speaker setup, with the earpiece serving as one of the speakers. The other speaker is at the bottom of the phone, next to the USB-C port.
The duo offers very good audio quality with deep and balanced audio.
However, the iPhone 17 achieved a Good score in our loudness test, making it slightly quieter than its iPhone 16 predecessor. This seems to be a trend with the iPhone 17 generation, as the 17 Pro and Pro Max are also quieter than the 16 counterparts. Apple may have reduced the size of the speakers or applied slightly different tuning, but the reason is hardly as important as the final result.
Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.
Connectivity
The iPhone 17 is unsurprisingly well-equipped when it comes to connectivity. It supports SA/NSA Sub-6 5G connectivity with a maximum of two simultaneously active SIM cards. Most regions get a single physical Nano-SIM slot and support for up to eight eSIM entries at a time. In the US, most models are eSIM only with no physical SIM slot. China gets a model with two physical Nano-SIM slots. Beyond cellular connectivity, the iPhone 17 can also do satellite connection in supported regions for emergency SOS and Find My usage.
The iPhone 17 supports GPS (L1+L5), GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS, QZSS and NavIC for location. Local connectivity is covered by tri-band Wi-Fi 7, which means you get access to the newer and still mostly uncongested 6GHz bands, if your router supports it. You also get Bluetooth 6.0 with LE support, NFC and Ultra Wideband (UWB) with a gen2 chip. There is no FM radio receiver on board, which is not surprising. No 3.5mm audio jack or an IR blaster.
The Type-C port on the bottom is still backed up by a simple USB 2.0 data connection, which means a theoretical maximum throughput of around 480 Mbps. USB Host mode is supported. There is also Display Port (DP) video output over Type-C Alt mode.
Reader comments
- Anonymous
- 16 Nov 2025
- n5A
This phone is only 0.1 pts better than the turd Nothing Phone 3? Really? REALLY?
- WesBadamio
- 15 Oct 2025
- X@U
I totally get what you mean, Apple really makes it tricky once updates start affecting performance or battery life.