- 3 months ago
Lets talk iPhone 17, Phone Air, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max
Torras Q3 Air lets you capture and create anytime, no tripod needed. Official Website: https://bit.ly/46b9saQ ; US Amazon: https://amzn.to/42fe9PM ; UK Amazon: https://bit.ly/46eDCKp
67W Flexline Charger: US Amazon: https://amzn.to/4nENiFl
Torras Q3 Air lets you capture and create anytime, no tripod needed. Official Website: https://bit.ly/46b9saQ ; US Amazon: https://amzn.to/42fe9PM ; UK Amazon: https://bit.ly/46eDCKp
67W Flexline Charger: US Amazon: https://amzn.to/4nENiFl
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TechTranscript
00:00I've just spent the last few hours hands-on with every new iPhone, so that's the way better than
00:04expected iPhone 17, this shockingly thin new iPhone Air, and then the big boys, the 17 Pro
00:10and Pro Max. I'm not going to lie to you, after the very slow event last year, this one is a
00:14complete reshuffle. Like, this one changes how I see the entire iPhone lineup, because it starts
00:19with the basic iPhone 17, which, you know when you first look at it, it's almost identical to the
00:23iPhone 16 last year. The same camera layout, the same buttons, super familiar design. But then you
00:28turn it on and you realize this is not a basic iPhone anymore. In fact, this is a full-on pro
00:33iPhone now, like the display. It's got the same size body, but it's now a 6.3 inch screen compared to
00:386.1, which also means the bezels are now the thinnest ever on an iPhone. And yes, sometimes these
00:44bezel improvements need a microscope for you to be able to tell, not this one. It is pretty immediately
00:49obvious when you look at this compared to the previous phone. It's got a tougher ceramic shield
00:532 coating on it. They say it's three times more resistant to scratches, but to be fair, I'm pretty
00:58sure the random particles in my pocket will still find a way. But also, this is like the
01:03easiest to read that an iPhone display has ever been, even in this super bright room where you
01:08can kind of tell that my older 16 is struggling. And that's partly the fact that the 17 now has the
01:13Pro's 3,000 nits of brightness, but it also has an anti-reflective coating, which we've never had
01:18on an iPhone. So have a look here. You know where the light is hitting the screens? Can you see how
01:22there is a little bit less of a visual interruption from it now? And it's all topped off with ProMotion,
01:28meaning that this is now a 120Hz display that can also go all the way down to 1Hz for the
01:33always-on mode. And I mean, on one hand, they had to do this eventually. You know, we've given the
01:37iPhone like a once-a-year annual roasting session every time Apple has announced a new phone that
01:42still happens to have a 60Hz display. But then on the other hand, it's just so un-Apple to actually
01:48release a Pro-branded feature on the base iPhone. Some part of me still thought that this phone
01:53would forever be doomed because the kinds of people buying it just wouldn't care about 120Hz.
01:57I've never been more glad to be wrong. The cameras are better too. The ultra-wide has gone from 12
02:02megapixel to 48, which is in line with the Pro's. And that will also improve your close-up macro
02:07photography because it uses the same camera, with also this ability to record from both the front
02:12camera and your rear cameras at the same time. I don't really know what this is for. Like, I can't
02:16imagine this becoming the next TikTok meta, but the implementation is slick. I do like how you can
02:21drag the bubble to decide where you want your face cam to be, and then how that reflects in the final
02:26footage. But the really interesting thing that no one saw coming is what is happening with the front
02:31camera. So they upgraded the camera from being able to take 12 megapixel photos to now taking 18 megapixel
02:36ones. But this is now a square camera sensor, which means you can take vertical selfies and you can take
02:42horizontal selfies, no matter which way you're holding the phone up. This is so cool. The shots
02:47are wider than before, they're more detailed than before, and it also has center stage, which means
02:51the camera can automatically go out wider and follow you around when you're on a FaceTime call. It really
02:56does feel like, after years of purposefully nerfing the base iPhones to keep the Pro's as attractive as
03:02possible, Apple's just decided that this year is the year that they ripped the band-aid off entirely.
03:07Like apart from the missing telephoto camera, there is such little missing here that I think this is
03:13by far the best value phone in the lineup. Because the iPhone 17 now also charges faster than last
03:18generation 16. It has an extra eight hours of battery life if you're watching videos, at least
03:22according to Apple. It's got the new A19 chip, which doesn't feel like a mind-blowing upgrade, but still,
03:26you know, that's an extra 20% performance. And then, in like the most un-Apple-like move ever,
03:32they upgraded the storage to 256 gigs from 128. And the moment they said that, I was so sure, like I'd
03:38already started writing that they were going to bump the price up to $899, but they didn't. This is the
03:44same $799 starting price as last year. Honestly, if I'd bought an iPhone 16 at full price, I'd be crying
03:51right now. But then we've got the completely new $999 iPhone Air. And this is where things get very
03:56interesting. So this is Apple's latest attempt at filling that awkward middle child slot in their
04:01lineup. In 2020, they made the iPhone mini, but then realized that no one wanted mini phones. Then
04:05in 2022, they changed that for the plus, which failed too, because it just didn't do enough
04:10differently. So instead of shrinking or stretching, Apple's decided that now it's time to try
04:15flattening. And like, I'm going to be honest with you, this phone absolutely creates an impression.
04:20Like the first time I picked the thing up, my mouth involuntarily formed a silent O,
04:25as I truly came to terms with how at 5.6 millimeters, this is thinner than any previous
04:30iPhone. This is thinner than Samsung's ultra slim Galaxy S25 edge. The thing's thinner than a pencil.
04:36But the other thing is it also feels a lot more luxury than I was expecting it to. When I watched
04:41the thing get announced, I thought, oh, it looks kind of flimsy and so light that it's a bit cheap,
04:47but it really doesn't feel it, especially with this glossy titanium rail being all the way around the
04:52sides and the ceramic shield that you've now got on the back. I think the 17 Air is made for the kind
04:56of person who cares enough about their phone to not just take the base 17, but also someone who
05:01isn't so into the specs that they'll worry about what they're missing compared to the pros. And I
05:05think if you are that kind of person, you will look at this Air, you will compare it to all past
05:10experiences you've had with iPhones, and you will think this is a miracle. But I see this product kind
05:15of like the really hot girl that you probably shouldn't try to date. You know, it's bad news, you know,
05:21it's not going to last. But let's be honest, you're probably going to try your luck anyway. But the truth
05:25is, you're making two pretty fundamental compromises for this thinness. The battery, which Apple helpfully
05:30tells us is still an all day battery, but whose day? So this is a smaller battery than you get on every other
05:37iPhone release this year. And it doesn't exactly reassure me that Apple has specifically made a
05:42MagSafe power bank designed to slip onto the Air, and that when they quoted the battery life of the
05:47Air, they quoted the figure that assumed you had this battery pack attached. But then, according to
05:52Apple, because of all the efficiency improvements of their new A19 chips, and this new N1 chip that
05:58handles Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and AirDrop, that this tiny sliver of a phone has the same battery life as
06:04the 16 Pro. I mean, if that's true, that is absolutely bonkers. I will start prepping the
06:09battery test immediately. But sadly, it's not just battery. You're also getting slower charging.
06:13You're only getting one speaker, which is really poor in 2025. And then the other big one is you're
06:18also losing the ultrawide camera that you would have had on the normal iPhone 17. And yeah, the one
06:23camera you do get is a decent 48 megapixel sensor, basically the same as the one on the 17. But this does
06:28mean this is a single rear camera on a $1,000 phone in almost 2026, which tell me that's not form over
06:38function. I mean, to be fair, it might work for Apple. It's exactly what they did with the MacBook Air. And
06:43that's now their best selling laptop by a mile. But my take is that the weight and the thickness of a normal
06:48phone is it's not enough of a problem to need this drastic of a solution. It's a very alluring phone. And you can
06:55so see how they're going to market it to the average consumer as a way to get pro performance
07:00since it does come with the new more powerful A19 Pro chip. But I actually think there'll be a very
07:05large difference in how that chip performs in this compared to in the actual pro phones. So let's talk
07:11about those pros. I think the fact that the base iPhone 17 now has all the previously pro features
07:16and that the Air has become the pretty phone, the phone for people who just want their device to look
07:21sexy means that this year, it really feels like Apple has been freed up to just prioritize function
07:28over form on these models. These are the most clearly actually made for pros pro iPhones I've
07:34ever seen, which is probably why they now feel comfortable charging the new higher prices of $1,099
07:39for the pro, which is pretty much the highest amount anyone is charging for a non XL size device,
07:45and then $1,199 for the pro max. So there's a few ways you can see this function first approach in
07:51action. Like the first is, these are thicker. Both the 17 Pro and the 17 Pro Max, they're almost
07:568% thicker than their previous counterparts, which is by its nature less stylish. But you know what
08:01makes a phone truly beautiful? It is just having a big fat battery on the inside. And that these do.
08:08Apple's saying you'll get up to 33 hours of battery on the 17 Pro, which is a very healthy jump from the
08:1327 on the 16 Pro, and then 39 on the pro max this time. All while having the side effect that I'm
08:19absolutely sure Apple has thought through of making the air look even thinner when you hold
08:23them side by side. But there's more. You'll also notice these pros look very different to last
08:27year's. Again, there is functional reason. You might know that for a long time now, pretty much every
08:33smartphone has had metal all around the sides and then a glass sheet across the back because you can
08:38still wirelessly charge your phone through glass. But there's a problem. Glass is absolutely terrible
08:43at dissipating heat. So this time, the iPhone 17 Pros are metal everywhere, except the specific zone
08:50where they have to be glass, or I guess ceramic shield this time around. This kind of window from
08:55here to here. So they've sacrificed on the minimalism of the design, but this metal should
09:00be like, no exaggeration, 200 times better at getting heat from inside the phone to outside the
09:05phone, which is also paired with a vapor chamber for the first time ever on an iPhone and a swap from
09:09titanium as the metal of choice to aluminium, which look, the choice to go with aluminium is fine.
09:15It's a very standard material that's still used in many flagship phones. And it might be an
09:19improvement. It's lighter than titanium. It's over 10 times more conductive. It's easier to colour, which
09:24is the only reason how they've been able to make the first actually interesting pro iPhone colour in far
09:31too long, this bronzy orange, which is definitely the one that I'm going to try and get. My issue with this
09:36situation is that Apple just switched to titanium two years ago. And when they did that, they made
09:41a massive deal about it. It was the headline feature of the iPhone 15 Pros. And they didn't
09:46stop talking about how much more beautiful the phones were because of this titanium. So it just
09:51feels a little bit cheeky to now quietly be like, it's aluminium, like every other phone, and then
09:56proudly talk about all the reasons why the new phones are better that are just because it is aluminium.
10:01But anyway, put all these things together and the iPhone 17 Pros should run a lot cooler, which is
10:06not the most exciting thing in the world, but it is needed. It'll make the phones perform a lot better,
10:11especially with the new A19 Pro chip. I tried some gaming on this and I'm not normally too taken aback
10:16by mobile gaming demos, but this actually was the most graphically impressive, smooth gaming experience
10:22I have ever had on a smartphone. They should charge faster because charging is also programmed to slow
10:27down when things get hot. Honestly, I'll be happy if this just means my phone won't dim its screen to
10:32zero brightness the minute the weather forecast changes to predict sun. But the thing that I'm
10:37most curious about is what's happening with the cameras. So the Pros get the same square front camera
10:42sensor that can do both orientations. And the other big change is the telephoto camera is going from
10:47five times optical zoom with a 12 megapixel resolution to four times optical zoom, but with a 48 megapixel
10:53resolution, which should actually be a double-sided upgrade because it means that when you're zooming in,
10:57you don't have to wait all the way till five times before your telephoto camera kicks in.
11:02So the quality in the early part of your zoom is better, but also because you have four times the
11:07number of pixels, even though the optical zoom number is slightly lower, it should mean your
11:11photos look better, even when you go really far in. And that's the iPhone 17s. Very impressed with
11:16the base phone. Interested by the air. And then I feel like the Pros could have done a little bit more,
11:21but they're solid. Shockingly little mention of Apple intelligence this time around, but I kind of prefer
11:26that because it means we get a bit more on the hardware end compared to the iPhone 16 generation.
11:30But now there's no titanium. It's like all the more reason to just get a Taurus case. Their Q3 Air
11:37has literal airbags inside of it. So cushioned, it doesn't matter how many times you drop the thing.
11:43But also it's the only phone case that actually makes your life easier. I use the magnet on the
11:47back all the time to quickly snap it onto things to take videos. I use this stand every day so I can call
11:52someone while I'm eating or hook it around something so I can watch a show while showering.
11:56And I've seen so many companies trying to copy this design, but this is the real deal. Strongest
12:01magnets, sturdiest hinge, grippiest sides. Plus their Flexline charger is a lifesaver when I'm traveling
12:07because this one brick replaces two high-speed chargers, but also with a baked in retractable
12:12USB-C cable. Link below to have a look yourself.
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