Spent a week using the iPhone 17, and it's exactly what it should be

The iPhone 17 looks familiar enough—same vertical camera bump, same general proportions as the 16—that you might walk past it in a store, but that would be a mistake. Behind that unchanged silhouette is a phone that finally feels complete: ProMotion that's been missing from the regular iPhone for far too long, plus upgraded cameras and a promise of longer battery life. Apple didn't reinvent anything here, but they didn't need to.

A week in, and you start picking up on what's new, The jump from 6.1 to 6.3 inches might not sound like much, but it's noticeable, and when that that bit of real estate is paired with 120Hz scrolling , it feels like a genuine step up—the kind you might not have known you wanted. It's immediately obvious why people made such a fuss about it, and you won't go back to 60Hz without noticing the difference. The display's also brighter now, up from 2,000 nits peak to 3,000 nits.

The screen also has a Ceramic Shield 2 layer, which Apple says should resist scratches three times better than before (still contemplating how they came to this number), and have less glare. I personally have high hopes for this second-generation Ceramic Shield 2, as someone who absolutely detests screen protectors.

The colours—lavender, sage, mist blue, and the usual black and white—are nice too, though they're all playing it safe this year. If you want something that actually pops, you'll have to spring for the Pro's bright orange, which feels like a weird reversal of how Apple usually does things. Sadly, this one doesn't have Ceramic Shield 2 on the back, so we'd need a case. Another disappointing thing is that Apple hasn't made TechWoven cases for the regular 17—so silicone cases are what we get.

The camera changes are where things get more interesting, even if they're not immediately obvious. Both rear cameras now use 48-megapixel sensors , which means the ultra wide finally gets a resolution bump from its previous 12 megapixels. The main lens, as usual, doubles as a 2x, 4x 'optical' telephoto while the ultra wide handles macro duties. There's also a new "Bright" Photographic Style.

How are the pictures, you ask? The main camera is as good as before, a tad sharper. The newer ultra wide is a camera that could finally make me start shooting ultra wide. It shoots in both 24-megapixel and 48-megapixel resolution—so that extra resolution makes even more sense.

But the centerpiece is the front-facing camera, which now packs 18 megapixels and Center Stage . Watching it automatically adjust framing as people move in and out of the shot, I realised that it's something useful we'd love on a phone, not just a gimmick. But that's not its only party trick. This sensor is square-shaped, which lets the camera app take pictures in landscape while you're holding your phone the usual way, in portrait. As weird as it sounds, let me tell you it's genuinely flabbergasting. Some of my friends were convinced to ditch their year-old iPhone 16 just because of this one feature.

Battery life is where Apple made some of the less flashy but more meaningful improvements. Apple claims eight more hours compared to the iPhone 16, and now that it's been a few days since I first set it up, it's lasting me longer than the 16 did. But is it lasting me almost half a day more? Well, to back that up I'd have to use it as more than just a secondary phone (which happens when you're trying out multiple phones at a time).

There's also faster 25W MagSafe charging now, up from the previous 15W, though you'll still need to buy the right charger separately. That right charger is what Apple calls a Dynamic Charger, which can charge the new iPhones at 40W but maxes out at 60W—but it isn't available to buy in India right now.

The chip has also been upgraded, but Apple isn't making the boldest of claims with the A19. For the week I've had the 17, the chip handles everything smoothly—as you'd expect—but it's really the combination of the bigger battery and more efficient processor that might make the biggest day-to-day difference. The liquidity of iOS 26 feels snappy on the new hardware, and while I have some more thoughts on the Liquid Glass , you’ll have to read them in a separate piece.

So where does all this leave us? At Rs 82,990, the iPhone 17 costs Rs 3,000 more than last year's model, but Apple doubled the base storage to 256GB—storage that would have cost you Rs 89,990 in the iPhone 16 lineup. So you're actually getting more for less. That’s the value proposition, anyway.

A week isn't long, but it's enough to get a feel for what's changed. The iPhone 17 feels like it's addressing what the 16 left out—ProMotion, better cameras, longer battery life, the works. Whether that still holds true after a few weeks of regular use: after the screen picks up some wear (or would it?), the battery settles in, and you've shot a few hundred photos—we'll find out. For now, though, Apple's done what they needed to do with the regular iPhone.