This year, that question is harder than ever to answer – so let’s get into it, shall we…

iPhone Pro or base iPhone 17? You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been asked that question this week.

On the one hand, Apple has gifted us an awesome phone with the value of the iPhone 17, but is it the phone for you? What are you losing out on if you don’t buy the iPhone 17 Pro, and will you end up regretting it in the long run?

iPhone 17 – the star of the show

Over the past few years, Apple has been accused of turning a blind eye to its base, entry-level iPhone. But this is the new Apple – the Apple that means business, and that shows with the iPhone 17.

This year, the Plus range of phones has been done away with and replaced by the new iPhone Air. I have one of those coming my way, so you’ll be able to read about what I make of it next week.

But as I wait for that, and my 17 Pro Max to arrive, the first improvement that you’ll notice is that the basic iPhone 17 gets a bigger screen than the outgoing 16 Plus. This year’s phone has a 6.3-inch screen compared to the 6.1-inch screen of the phone it replaces. To all intents and purposes, this phone is now the same dimensions as a 17 Pro – just not quite as heavy.

The iPhone 17 has a regular aluminium body, whereas the Pros have a unibody aluminium design, which it has mainly because of the extra heat dissipation that it offers. The 17 has Apple’s new Ceramic Shield 2 glass on the front, which they are confidently saying is 3 times more scratch-resistant.

Possibly the most significant improvement to the 17s display, though, is that now it’s an adaptive refresh rate panel. Apple had taken a lot of heat that they dare sell a phone costing around £800 that didn’t have a 120Hz display.

So Apple listened!

I’m not the most ardent ‘it has to be 120Hz and nothing else will do’ kind of guy, but I’ll admit it’s another meaningful update. I think out of the current lineup, it’s now only the 16e that still has a 60Hz panel.

Still talking display updates it’s now an Always-On Display and it’s brighter too, up by 1000 nits to a max outdoor brightness of 3000 nits – in fact, it’s the exact match of the 17 Pros display.

The more I go through the specs of the iPhone 17, the more impressed I am by it. But that’s not to say that there aren’t differences that may be worth considering as you ponder which phone should get your cash this year.

A chip off the old block

We’ll get to the cameras soon, but before that, a couple of other notable differences that are worth considering are the chip and the USB-C port.

The iPhone 17 only has the A19 Chip and not the A19 Pro. That means you’ll be getting the same 6-core CPU with 2 performance cores as the Pro chip, but only a 5-core GPU. That said, though, each GPU core has a Neural Accelerator that Apple claims improves on-device generative AI and other system-intensive tasks. The A19 chip is also built on the latest third-nanometer node.

The 17 also gets Apple’s new N1 network chip for faster and better Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, but they’ve decided to stick with a Qualcomm modem in the iPhone 17, for the time being at least.

Battery life has improved year-on-year with a claimed 8-hour improvement over the iPhone 16, with Apple saying you’ll get 30 hours of video playback out of it and in iOS 26, you’ll also get the benefit of its Adaptive Power battery management mode as well. The phone’s charging speeds are quicker, and it’ll support both Qi2 & MagSafe wireless charging.

One of the differences Apple has decided that differentiates a Pro from a non-Pro is the data transfer speeds. As a non-Pro, Apple deem that you’ll only need USB 2 speeds of up to 480Mb/s.

In truth, I don’t know if this is a deal-breaker or not. The only time I use my USB 3 port is when I’m recording ProRes video and I’m using an external SSD.

Speaking of SSDs, you only get the two storage options on the iPhone 17 of either 256GB or 512GB. With the Pro, you get the choice of 1TB or even 2TB. For reference, my current iPhone 16 Pro Max is only a 256GB model, and after a year, it is only half full.

Snap-happy

You’ll have doubtless heard all about the fancy new square sensor on this year’s iPhones – well, the 17 gets it, and there is no difference between it and the one you’ll find on the 17 Pros.

The iPhone 17 gets the same 18MP front-facing camera as the Pro phones, and the specs are identical save for the fact that you can’t record ProRes 4K video with it. Apart from that, the selfie camera is identical.

That new sensor means that your phone will automatically work out for you whether it needs to shoot in landscape or portrait orientation. But just like the Pro range, you’ll get Centre Stage, Dual Capture video and the improved stabilisation.

On the back, if you choose the 17 over the 17 Pro, then you’ll lose the 48MP Fusion Telephoto lens. That means you’ll not have the 4x and 8x optical zooms that the Pro gets, but only you’ll know if that’s a big deal or not.

I can’t recall when I last shot with it, or come to think of it, the ultra-wide either.

You’ll still be able to shoot in .5, 1x and 2x on the iPhone 17, though, and both the cameras are 48MP – just like the Pro cameras. Going through the spec sheets, the only other differences I can spot are that you don’t get the second-gen image stabilisation on the 17 and you can’t shoot ProRaw.

Video overkill!

Probably the biggest differences between the iPhone 17 on 17 Pro are when it comes to the video setup.

On the main camera on the 17, you can only shoot up to 4k 60 fps where whereas on the Pros, you can shoot 4K 120 fps. And of course, you don’t get all the ProRes toys to play with on the standard iPhone 17.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to seeing what the new iPhone 17 Pro video setup is like, but I only ever use it in my studio anyway. I’m planning a trip with my 17 Pro Max that will hopefully put the video side of it to the test, but in day-to-day use, it’s not something I’m turning to that often.

And even though I’ll have the option to shoot video using Gunlock support, the Academy Colour Encoding System and Apple Log 2, I won’t use it. Even though I make videos for a living, which I guess makes me a pro, those feature sets are beyond my use case.

The jury is out

So, let’s try to sum up then – what are you missing out on if you were to choose to buy the iPhone 17 and not the 17 Pro?

You’ll get a smaller battery, fewer video options and no 4x or 8x zoom cameras, and you won’t get the choice to shoot your photos in ProRaw or videos in ProRes.

You’ll only have 8GB of RAM as opposed to 12GB, and you’ll have that slower USB 2 port if data transfer is a big part of your workflow. You’ll only have the A19 chip and not the A19 Pro.

The back glass isn’t Ceramic Shield 2, and you lose one core from the GPU. Oh, and you won’t get the new deionised water-filled vapour chamber, but then again, you probably won’t need it or miss it.

But I think that’s about it – in a nutshell, that’s all you are missing out on.

The battery, although smaller, is still improved, though, and it’s larger than before at 3692 mAh. The lack of ProRes and ProRaw isn’t huge, and only you know if the lack of a zoom lens is an issue.

But let’s look at the price – that’s the clincher here. In basic configs, the iPhone 17 starts at £799 compared to the iPhone 17 Pro Max, which starts at £1199. And don’t forget the basic iPhone now starts with 256GB of storage, which is the storage option I’ve bought for both the Pro Max and the Air.

£400 is a huge difference, and on the face of it, I don’t think there is much to choose between them.

If you wanted my advice and an answer to that question of which iPhone 17 you should buy this year, I’d say buy the iPhone 17. It’s almost a pared-down iPhone Pro and to me looks to be the deal of this year’s lineup.