iPhone 17 Pro / Air Impressions Spot the Red Flags!

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iPhone 17 Pro / Air Impressions Spot the Red Flags!  #iPhone17 #iPhone17Air #iPhone17Pro #iPhone17ProMax

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00:00Hey, what's up? MKBHD here, and welcome to your first look and hands-on of everything Apple just

00:06unveiled today at their 2025 September event. This is iPhone 17, 17 Pro, and 17 Air. Definitely get

00:14subscribed to be among the first to see the full reviews when they come out, but this is my first

00:17impressions, and I actually found it pretty simple to synthesize my thoughts on everything

00:24they announced today. Like, there is some good tech, there's some interesting new designs,

00:28and some questionable decisions, but the funny thing is, you know, as I go to these events and

00:33as I think about all this stuff, what usually happens is I end up typically getting some text

00:37from friends asking what I think of the announcements, and my mental task is to

00:43summarize everything I'm thinking about into one or two easily digestible sentences or just words

00:49to understand what's new and what happened. I don't want to tell them too much information,

00:54and so that's what I'm going to give you about each of the things Apple announced today. I'm

00:58going to give you my super, super compressed version of what I saw. So let's just start

01:02with the iPhone 17, right? The base new iPhones. My ultra simple summary for the iPhone 17 would be,

01:09hey, it got ProMotion and a better selfie camera, and the rest is mostly the same. So the design

01:15is mostly unchanged other than the new colors, same screen sizes, same dimensions, same camera bump,

01:21same buttons and camera control, which they barely talked about, but there's a new A19 chip inside,

01:28that should see some nice performance gains and efficiency bumps, roughly 20% faster CPU,

01:33which is nice, and battery life should be a few beats longer, and the display is brighter too,

01:39getting up to 3,000 nits. But this is the first time we are seeing a Pro branded feature on a non-Pro

01:46iPhone because every new iPhone across the range now has ProMotion, and it's the same ProMotion too.

01:52The adaptive 1 to 120Hz doesn't seem to be handicapped at all. It's funny, we always used

01:58to have that regular people don't care about 120Hz argument, but now here it is on the new base

02:04iPhones. So, hey, sounds great to me. This makes the base iPhones much more usable, and so does the

02:10new base storage of 256 gigs. So those are welcome upgrades. But the other new thing was the selfie

02:16camera. And it was funny, the keynote was pretty chill up until the point where they started to talk

02:21about this, and it was actually the loudest applause, and it was really tempting to make fun of it. But

02:25I actually do think this is really clever because all these new iPhones have this massively upgraded

02:31selfie camera system. They're calling it center stage, but I actually think that kind of does a

02:35disservice because the actual center stage on their laptops and stuff is kind of annoying. But what's

02:39happening is with these phones, they all have a larger 24 megapixel square selfie camera sensor.

02:46And so then when you go to take a selfie, the phone can take a regular vertical selfie

02:50or can manually or even automatically take a horizontal selfie without you having to rotate the

02:57phone. And honestly, this might be genius. Like the default for most people is obviously to take a

03:03vertical selfie. Now it just fits on the phone. You're probably viewing it on the phone. But if you

03:07go to take a horizontal selfie to fit more people, suddenly the camera lens is off to the side and

03:12it's a little bit less natural looking. So now since the selfie camera is larger and a square,

03:18it can literally just crop an 18 megapixel selfie in portrait or landscape and for videos or photos.

03:26It's, I think it's great. It's very useful. It might be the biggest upgrade to the iPhone 17.

03:31So then there's the iPhone 17 Pro. And my quick friendly summary of the Pro phones is,

03:39hey, they got better zoom and more battery and orange. So the Pro iPhones actually look a little

03:46bit different. There's actually quite a bit going on here with this new design. First of all, there's

03:50only three colors, cosmic orange, deep blue, and silver. Really bumming me out that there's no black

03:58Pro phone. But then I remember dbrand exists. Nevermind. But then the thing that's going to catch

04:03everyone's eye on the back is the camera bar up at the top, which is what Apple keeps calling in their

04:07keynote a plateau. It kind of looks a little bit like the pixels visor or frankly, what we've been

04:12seeing on a ton of other Android phones for years now, just a huge bar across the top of the back

04:17of the phone. But it's actually not just cameras in here. Apple's done some rearranging of the insides

04:23of the phone to actually shove more components like the A19 Pro chip and the logic board and storage up

04:30here in that bar. So they could fill out more of the bottom of the phone with more battery. And that

04:37approach is going to make even more sense in a little bit. But my first reaction to that is,

04:42oh yeah, great. That sounds like these Pro phones might actually come with a real substantial battery

04:47upgrade from last year, which is again, very welcome. Now you might also notice some other little

04:51things like the millimeter wave antenna at the top of the phone and the ring around that plateau

04:56actually also being an antenna. But then the other new design element is that they actually switched

05:01back to aluminum, which is interesting because we just saw like two years ago, the iPhone 15 Pro's

05:10whole thing was titanium, the new titanium color and titanium rails. And it was a whole big deal.

05:15But now they're switching back to aluminum in a unibody form because it's much better thermally.

05:21And so there's also a new vapor chamber right in the middle of the back of this phone. First time we've

05:26seen a vapor chamber on the iPhone. And so this new cooling system and new unibody aluminum build

05:32should mean the iPhone shouldn't get nearly as hot from sustained loads to the chip, which is

05:38different from normal bursty quick on and off workloads of everyday use. I'm talking more about

05:42like rendering long videos or playing an intense game for a long time with ray tracing at high frame

05:48rates. This phone should be able to keep cool and keep that performance high without overheating.

05:53Apple is saying 40% better sustained performance. So yeah, this design is just a little bit more than

05:59meets the eye, you know, rearranging some components here and there, being more efficient, better cooling

06:04and better battery. The number that they quoted on stage was 39 hours of video playback, which

06:12whatever, dumb stat, video playback is kind of ridiculous, but okay, we'll take that. And I also

06:17looked up the iPhone 16 Pro Max's video playback, and that was also a great battery life phone.

06:22That one quoted 33 hours. So maybe up to like 10% battery life on this phone, which is sick. And then

06:28there's the cameras that I mentioned. They always go hard with pro phones and cameras. And this generation

06:33is no exception with the main improvement being the new 48 megapixel 4x telephoto camera. Now 4x might be a

06:42lesser number than last year's 5x. But that was a smaller 12 megapixel sensor. This new zoom camera

06:49is a 56% larger sensor and has way more resolution. It's 48 megapixels. So that is a smaller gap between

06:57the main camera and the zoom. And you should be able to continue to zoom further and crop more with less

07:03consequence now that you have 48 megapixels. The pro phones also get the new selfie camera. They also get

07:08the new brighter display. He's also got Qi 2 support. And then they also got some seriously pro features

07:14that I'm looking forward to testing like Genlock Sync support and also ProRes RAW video, which I will

07:21hopefully be getting to test in an autofocus video coming up very soon. But of course, there was one

07:26more new iPhone, the iPhone Air. No number, just Air. And y'all know what that means? They're doing the

07:34ultra thin thing and they're leaning in hard. So this thing is a stunningly ridiculously thin 5.6

07:43millimeters at the thinnest part. And you can tell from the commercials, you can tell from my footage

07:48here. And you know, the first time I hold the phone, it has the same effect on me that the S25 Edge did

07:53from Samsung, which is just, it's so sick. Like clearly nobody's asking for thinner phones, but once you

08:01hold one, it is pretty impressive that they're able to make something like this. But there are also

08:06absolutely some red flags that come along with this. So the basics are, it's a six and a half inch

08:12ProMotion display. It's got the A19 Pro chip inside, titanium body. The new selfie camera, of course,

08:20is in there. And it has a single 48 megapixel fusion camera on the back with the new design again,

08:26same camera as the iPhone 17, but with the nice plateau from the Pro phone. And then there's a

08:32new N1 chip inside for all the networking connectivity, which is Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6,

08:37thread, and a new, more energy efficient C1X modem for cellular. I put out a short that basically

08:44already said this, but I really think this phone is going to be a hard sell because if you subtract

08:50emotions from it, it's just, it's the worst one. This is going to jump in the lineup at $999. It

08:57replaces essentially the plus phones in the lineup. And it is surrounded by other iPhones that are

09:02better than it in basically every way, other than being super thin and light. So it's a fascinating

09:08gamble. This phone has the same A19 Pro chip in it as the Pro phones, minus one GPU core. Interesting

09:15choice. Apparently it's a bit more efficient than the base A19, so that's good for battery life.

09:20But we also just heard a whole long list of choices Apple made with the Pro phones to make

09:26them more thermally efficient to not overheat, switching from titanium to aluminum and adding

09:31a vapor chamber to the back. But this phone is still titanium and absolutely does not have room

09:38for an advanced thermal solution or any sort of vapor chamber. So it sounds like this phone could

09:43get much hotter and throttle performance much quicker. It's a red flag. Now we also know that

09:50ultra thin phones have a tendency to be a little bit less durable. They've bent over the years.

09:56And I'm not going to be the first one to point this out. I mean, I'm sure already glued to Jerry

09:59Rig Everything's channel for his bend test. And Apple, of course, has thought about this. They've for

10:05sure tested this. And they're telling us it's the most durable iPhone ever. But I mean, I'm looking at

10:10the phone and I think it qualifies also as a red flag. And then we already know there is just no

10:18way battery life can be good on this phone. Right? There's just no way. I've been reviewing phones for

10:24more than a decade and all signs point to it being trash. There was a slide in the keynote today about

10:28how they were still proud to achieve all day battery life. But like, come on, really? I mean,

10:37they still do the thing where they rearrange the components up until the little plateau at the top

10:41to make room for more battery at the bottom. But there is just absolutely not enough room in this

10:46phone for a large battery. And it doesn't appear to be silicon carbon or any sort of a special ultra

10:51high density battery. And Apple also announced it alongside a special dedicated MagSafe battery

10:57accessory just for this phone that adds 3149 million powers and just barely combined will match

11:05the 17 Pro in terms of quoted video playback. So if that doesn't scream red flag, I don't know what

11:11to tell you. It is also eSIM only globally, because there's no room in any version of this phone for

11:17a plastic SIM card. There's also no millimeter wave 5G. And like I said, it's coming in at $1,000,

11:26which is more expensive than the base iPhone, which will have a better camera system and better battery

11:32life and may overheat less. So look, I think there's two ways to look at this phone. This is either

11:41Apple just throwing something new at the wall and seeing if it sticks. Like we just saw them try,

11:47okay, they had the mini phone for like two years and that really didn't sell that well.

11:50So then they moved to the plus and that was also a little bit underwhelming. So now they're trying

11:55that same spot in the lineup for a ultra thin phone and seeing if maybe they can market that

12:00to turn into some more sales. So you can see it as that, or you can see this as a visionary,

12:07long time in the making preview at the future of all phones. Like maybe someday in the future,

12:15every phone will be this thin and Apple is just now today getting the tech together

12:20with the battery and display and modem and Apple Silicon to make this phone possible.

12:27Maybe kind of like how the first MacBook Air sucked and was underpowered, but then eventually all

12:32laptops became that thin. Maybe that's also what's going to happen to smartphones and maybe the same

12:37way Samsung made the ultra thin S25 edge. And then a few months later, they came out with their super

12:42thin foldable, the Z Fold 7. And I felt like the edge phone was one half of that foldable. Maybe

12:48that's also what Apple's doing. Maybe we're going to see an ultra thin foldable iPhone next year.

12:54Maybe. Either way, I do think it's clear that you probably won't find too many logical reasons to

12:59pick up this first gen iPhone Air. But I do also think that picking it up and holding it is going to

13:07convince a lot of people because it's pretty stunning in person. And it's the same thing I

13:12said about the Samsung phone. It's pretty sick, but only time will tell for that part of the story.

13:16Now, there were a couple other announcements today. There were new AirPods Pro 3, which have

13:20twice as good ANC as the last gen, which is crazy. Plus IP57 and heart rate tracking during workouts,

13:28all the same $250 price. Definitely going to test those. And there's also a new Apple Watch Series 11,

13:33now with 5G and possible hypertension detection, and the slightly new Watch Ultra 3 with thinner

13:39bezels, LTPO3, and slightly longer battery life. I'm going to be testing all this stuff over the

13:43next couple of weeks, so get subscribed and I'll see you in those videos. And shout out to channel

13:49sponsor Ridge for being ahead of the game because while the iPhone Air does lack battery, it does

13:54still have MagSafe, which means you're going to want to pick up a Ridge power bank. I've seen plenty of

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14:15your Apple Watch. Pass-through charging, so it doubles as a hub, and it also comes in three colors,

14:20matte black, matte olive, and, I guess perfect for the new iPhone 17 Pro color, Base Camp Orange.

14:26Ridge also makes a MagSafe card holder that snaps right onto your iPhone and holds up to three

14:30cards. Every Ridge product comes with a lifetime warranty and a 99-day risk-free trial, so get

14:35one today and head over to ridge.com slash mkbhd for 10% off. Thanks for watching. See you guys

14:41very soon in the next videos. Peace.

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