- 1 day ago
iPhone 17 vs iPhone 17 Pro - DON'T BE FOOLED
Category
🦄
CreativityTranscript
00:00Every year, Apple releases a normal iPhone model and a pro iPhone model.
00:05But this year, Apple has completely thrown out their usual playbook
00:08on how they differentiate these phone models.
00:10So forget everything you know about the normal iPhone and the pro iPhone
00:14because these phones have never been more alike.
00:17And that is going to lead to a lot of confusion about
00:20who really needs to upgrade to the pro model this year.
00:23But don't worry, I'm going to make it super simple and super clear
00:27talking about which iPhone model is right for you.
00:30And believe me, it's going to blow your mind.
00:34Or save money. You'll save some money probably.
00:37All right, let's start with the phone designs because on the front,
00:40these phones now look identical because they are.
00:44They both have the same 6.3 inch display size with ultra narrow bezels.
00:48And unlike previous years where the pro models will get the most advanced display tech,
00:52this year, Apple has decided to grace normal users with that same display technology.
00:57So both phones have 3,000 nits of brightness with a new anti-reflective display
01:01that makes these phones better than ever to use in brighter environments.
01:05When I was using both phones outside,
01:07I could definitely not see any difference in these displays.
01:10Both phones also get the same 120 hertz pro motion display
01:13for smoother scrolling and animations.
01:14And both phones feature an always-on display.
01:18There are zero differences between the displays this year.
01:22So if that was one of your only criteria before for stepping up to the pro model,
01:27well, now you don't have to spend extra money this year.
01:30Both phones also get the same new front-facing 18 megapixel center stage camera,
01:35which overall has better image quality and can automatically extend the camera view
01:39to fit in more people for a selfie.
01:41And you can actually automatically flip the camera from horizontal to vertical as well,
01:46or do it with the press of a button.
01:48So literally, these are the same exact phones on the front,
01:51but flip over the iPhones and now you're going to see a massive difference
01:55because the pro models do have a new design
01:58with a giant camera plateau, as Apple calls it,
02:01and a two-tone finish on the back
02:03that is definitely going to let everyone know
02:05you have the latest iPhone model.
02:07Whereas the regular iPhone 17,
02:10well, it kind of just looks like an iPhone 16.
02:13But don't be fooled by this radical new design on the 17 Pro,
02:16because it actually has more in common with the regular 17 this year,
02:21because Apple switched away from using a premium metal like titanium or stainless steel,
02:26as they always have used to differentiate the pro models as the more premium looking devices.
02:32And instead, this year, they revert it to using just aluminum,
02:36like they do on the normal iPhone models.
02:38Now, it's not the same exact design
02:40because the 17 Pro does utilize a unibody aluminum frame,
02:44where if you look at the kind of curvature from the sides to the back,
02:48you'll see it's one continuous aluminum body,
02:50which wraps around to meet the phone
02:52to the glass cutout panel in the center,
02:55so it can still wirelessly charge.
02:57Whereas on the normal iPhone 17,
02:59there's more of a sharp divide between the aluminum frame
03:03and the full glass back.
03:05Now, in the hand, without a case,
03:07I would say the 17 Pro,
03:09when it meets your palm,
03:12feels a bit softer without that sharp divide.
03:14But there's also a weakness to this new pro design,
03:17and that is just how thick Apple has made these pro phone models.
03:21Both the Pro and the Pro Max gain an extra half inch in thickness.
03:27While the normal iPhone 17 does get a little thicker this year,
03:30it is not as drastic as the Pro models,
03:33which are almost one inch thicker than the normal iPhone 17s.
03:37On top of that, the base 17 is also lighter by about 30 grams.
03:40And overall, due to the extra thickness and weight,
03:44I would say the 17 edges out the Pro in overall handling and comfort.
03:49Like if you're using these phones for a while,
03:51using the normal 17 is going to be less fatiguing.
03:54Now, durability is kind of a big open question.
03:57Like I said, the fronts of these phones are exactly the same.
03:59They have Apple's new ceramic shield,
04:01which has even more scratch resistance.
04:03But the interesting thing about the Pro
04:05is it also gets this new ceramic shield on the back
04:10to help prevent it from like fall damage.
04:13And also, I guess, scratches.
04:15Whereas the normal 17 doesn't get this.
04:18Now, I haven't done any sort of like durability tests
04:20or torture tests on these phones.
04:22I imagine they're both going to be pretty durable.
04:26But the one thing I will say is there is kind of a problem
04:31with the annotization process on the iPhone 17 Pro.
04:35Spoiler alert, they come in very bright, vibrant colors.
04:37And because that aluminum is a unibody aluminum
04:40that wraps around to the back, whereas this is glass,
04:43the chances of that aluminum getting scuffed up
04:45might be a little bit more likely.
04:48There's been something called like scratch gate
04:50going on online.
04:51I don't know how blown out of proportion this is
04:53because this is based on a lot of people's torture tests.
04:55But I will say for my own model,
04:57and this is very like kind of microscopic,
04:59but I can even see it sitting right here.
05:01I do see two little indentations on the bottom here,
05:05basically two little scuff marks
05:06where you can see the silver aluminum peeking out.
05:09Now, I'll show you this on like a macro camera
05:11so you can really see it.
05:12But yeah, there's definitely some little scuff marks
05:15on my orange 17 Pro.
05:17I've only had this for a few days at this point.
05:19So if cosmetic damage like that bothers you,
05:22the iPhone 17 glass back definitely won't show
05:25signs of wear like this.
05:27Or I guess you could just pick like a silver iPhone 17 Pro.
05:31Speaking of colors,
05:32the options for the 17 Pro are pretty limited.
05:34You can get silver, deep blue,
05:36or my favorite cosmic orange, and that's it.
05:39The normal iPhone 17 has a wider array of colors
05:42that will probably please more people, like black.
05:44Imagine that, a black phone.
05:46What an innovation.
05:47White, mist, blue, lavender, and my favorite, sage,
05:51or let's be honest, matcha.
05:53This is the matcha phone.
05:55So same aluminum material, same display size,
05:59same display quality.
06:01What's the catch here?
06:02There's gotta be something different here, right?
06:05Well, there is, and it's in three key areas.
06:08The first is battery life.
06:10One of the reasons the Pro model got thicker this year
06:13was to fit a bigger battery inside of it.
06:16Apple says the iPhone 17 Pro will get you 33 hours
06:18of video playback, while the normal 17 will get you 30 hours.
06:22Now, Apple stats only measure
06:23just playing video offline continuously,
06:25which is a pretty non-realistic way
06:27to measure battery life performance.
06:29But in real world usage,
06:30I find that the 17 Pro is looking to get about
06:33like two hours extra in battery life.
06:35Now, I'm not one to do unrealistic battery tests
06:38comparing every iPhone model,
06:39because, you know, battery life varies from person to person.
06:42Different situations can drain your battery faster.
06:44Like a weak cell signal can just wreak havoc
06:46on your battery life.
06:47It's definitely not because I'm lazy, right?
06:49But Tom's guy does do a really good battery life test.
06:52And they said the iPhone 17 Pro can get you 15 hours
06:55and 32 minutes of continuous web surfing,
06:58while the iPhone 17 gets 12 hours and 47 minutes.
07:01That's kind of similar to Apple's claims
07:03with their video tests, right?
07:04Like you're getting about two to three hours more
07:06in battery life usage.
07:07So if you are someone that is glued to their phone,
07:11that extra battery in the 17 Pro
07:13could be a reason to upgrade,
07:15or you could just pick up a slim MagSafe battery pack.
07:19Well, unfortunately, the one that Apple sells
07:21only fits the iPhone Air
07:23and doesn't fit the other 17 models,
07:25which is why I prefer the Anker Nano Power Bank,
07:29because it is also a magnetic wireless charger
07:31that is just as slim as the iPhone Air's MagSafe battery,
07:35while somehow also featuring
07:37a bigger 5,000 milliamp hour capacity.
07:40In fact, it is the slimmest 5,000 milliamp hour
07:43wireless charger on the market
07:44and charges at faster 15 watt charging speeds.
07:48And it is designed to work with any MagSafe iPhone,
07:53not just the iPhone Air.
07:55So you can slap this on the back of an iPhone 17,
07:58an iPhone 17 Pro, or yes, even the iPhone Air.
08:01And another cool thing about the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro
08:04is they also feature faster charging times,
08:08up to 50% in just 20 minutes,
08:10but you need a new 40 watt adapter to take advantage of that.
08:14And once again, Anker comes out ahead
08:16with the Anker Nano 45 watt charger.
08:20It is the most compact foldable charger I have ever seen.
08:24I cannot believe this actually fast charges my iPhone,
08:27and it is smaller than Apple's official 40 watt charger
08:31and costs less too.
08:33To pick up any of these Anker products for your iPhone 17,
08:36check out the link in the description below.
08:39And thank you to Anker for sponsoring this video.
08:41Now, the second big difference for the 17
08:43and the 17 Pro are the chips.
08:45The 17 uses a regular A19 chip
08:47with six CPU cores and five GPU cores,
08:50whereas the iPhone 17 Pro, of course,
08:52uses an A19 Pro with six CPU cores and six GPU cores,
08:56which honestly, based on my own benchmarks,
08:59it looks like at least in terms of CPU performance,
09:02the A19 and A19 Pro are almost identical.
09:05However, looking at the chip doesn't tell the full story
09:08because the iPhone 17 Pro has enhanced cooling
09:12thanks to a vapor chamber cooling system,
09:15which basically means that for tasks
09:17that are really demanding,
09:18like gaming, editing, recording 4K video,
09:21or maybe even just using your phone on a really hot day,
09:24that extra cooling performance in the 17 Pro
09:27can make sure that your phone
09:28not only runs faster at peak performance,
09:31but may even lead to some quality of life improvements,
09:34like maybe your display brightness
09:35won't have to throttle and lower as much
09:38when your phone is overheating.
09:40But in my real world usage,
09:41I have yet to see this really play out
09:43because temperatures haven't been too hot
09:46on the East Coast during the iPhone testing.
09:48For example, I was using these phones outside,
09:51side-by-side next to each other for a little while,
09:54and both seemed to handle brightness levels really well,
09:56and both phones did not get overly hot.
09:59I even tested the most demanding game I own
10:02on the iPhone, Resident Evil 4 Remake,
10:04and both the iPhone 17 and Pro
10:07looked exactly the same graphically,
10:09and both looked to be playing the game
10:11at 30 frames per second.
10:12So I don't really think I'm seeing the benefits
10:15of the vapor chamber cooling during my own use cases just yet.
10:20That being said, who knows in the future, right?
10:22If I go outside on a hot day,
10:24if I do a ton of 5G streaming,
10:26if I'm recording a lot of 4K video,
10:28if I'm playing more demanding games
10:30at longer gaming sessions,
10:32I am sure that extra cooling will come in handy,
10:35but I hope I'm kind of showing you that in this video
10:38that for most users,
10:39it probably shouldn't be a consideration
10:42to spend extra money on the Pro model.
10:44The final reason,
10:46and this one is probably the most obvious reason
10:48to upgrade to the Pro model,
10:49is for the camera,
10:51but it might not be in the way you think.
10:53Now, on paper,
10:54there are differences between the sensors
10:57and focal lengths of the 17 camera system
11:00versus the Pro,
11:02but in my side-by-side testing,
11:04these phones look pretty much identical
11:07in their default shooting mode,
11:08and that now goes for both the regular wide-angle lens
11:12and the ultra-wide-angle lens,
11:14because the normal 17 has 48 megapixels on both of them,
11:18and so does the Pro.
11:19And it actually makes the upgrade path to the Pro
11:22pretty easy to explain this year,
11:24given how similar the camera systems perform.
11:26And this creates a pretty easy separation
11:29on the main camera modes for the 17 and 17 Pro.
11:32Because the difference for most people is that, yes,
11:35the 17 Pro has an extra zoom lens
11:39that goes farther than ever before.
11:41Now, optically, this is just a 4X zoom,
11:43which is actually less than the 5X
11:45that was on the 16 Pro Max model,
11:47but what Apple did this year
11:48was to upgrade the sensor on this camera to 48 megapixels
11:52to match the other two camera sensors.
11:54And basically, this sensor with its higher resolution
11:57allows Apple to pull off the same trick that they do
11:59with the 1X lens,
12:01where you can crop into that sensor
12:02to use a 12 megapixel readout to get a 2X photo,
12:08which is kind of like mimicking a 2X optical lens.
12:11They're doing the same thing
12:12for the zoom on the 4X lens,
12:13they crop in and that now becomes an 8X 12 megapixel lens.
12:17But forget all the technicalities of how Apple does this.
12:20The only thing you need to know is,
12:22does this zoom lens provide farther, more detailed,
12:27and cleaner shots than the previous model?
12:30And the answer to that is a resounding yes.
12:33I was actually pretty impressed by the 8X mode
12:36on the iPhone 17 Pro.
12:38I took a lot of photos in different lighting situations,
12:40and having that extra reach let me zoom into buildings
12:44or far off subjects
12:45and capture a really different perspective
12:47that I haven't been able to capture with my iPhone before.
12:50Now, obviously, anyone into photography
12:52is gonna want that extra zoom lens,
12:53but even for basic users, let's say non-pro users,
12:56this is a feature you might appreciate.
12:58Let's say you're in the bleachers
13:00and your kid is playing baseball,
13:01whatever sports ball they play,
13:03and you wanna take a photo of them.
13:05Well, now you can zoom in, take a photo of them,
13:08and it will look nice.
13:10Or let's say you're on a hike,
13:11you see like an animal in the distance,
13:12you wanna take a photo of it without scaring it off?
13:14Well, now you can do that with the Pro model,
13:16and doing it with this phone,
13:19maybe might be doable with like the 2X mode,
13:21you zoom into like a digital 5X,
13:23but it's not gonna be as clear or crisp
13:25as it can be on the 17 Pro.
13:28Now, I actually think the real value of the 17 Pro
13:31isn't that it has this additional zoom lens.
13:33The real value with the Pro is that
13:36it has more flexibility
13:39when it comes to editing photos and videos.
13:41That's because the 17 Pro
13:43has exclusive camera-related software features
13:47that allow it in the photo department
13:50to capture ProRAW photos,
13:52which allows you to have a lot more control
13:54over editing your own photos in post-production,
13:57and just removes a lot of the
13:59over-the-top smartphone processing
14:02that takes place when you take a normal photo.
14:04You even get that flexibility in the video department,
14:07because the 17 Pro can shoot 4K at higher frame rates,
14:11up to 120 frames per second,
14:12and it can also record in ProRes and in log video,
14:16which gives you kind of the same flexibility
14:19that ProRAW photos gives you
14:21when you go to color grade that video in post-production.
14:25And that flexibility goes to other areas of the phone as well.
14:28The 17 Pro has a faster USB-C port with USB-C 3.1 speeds,
14:33while the iPhone 17 has a very slow USB 2 port,
14:37which is fine for charging and maybe small data transfers,
14:40but if you're offloading a lot of large video files,
14:44the Pro is a must.
14:45I also like the flexibility of the microphone system
14:48on the 17 Pro with its studio quality microphones.
14:50It sounds better than the normal 17,
14:53and it's just another area where you get even more flexibility
14:57with the recording capabilities,
14:58not just for photos or videos, but for audio as well.
15:01Now, unless you're a techie, and more specifically,
15:03a camera nerd, I probably overcomplicate all that,
15:05and even honestly, I am not like the best at editing video,
15:09or color grading and all that stuff,
15:10and even I barely know this stuff, right?
15:13So, I think what a normal user wants to know is,
15:17can you do basic video editing?
15:19Like if you're trimming a video,
15:20or making slight color adjustments,
15:22or applying a filter to your video,
15:24well, then the normal iPhone 17 is fine.
15:27You really don't need to know about all these advanced features
15:29that the 17 Pro has, but if you are someone
15:32that already edits video, and you want full control
15:36over how that video or photo looks, then yeah,
15:40you're gonna want the full-fledged camera
15:42of the iPhone 17 Pro.
15:44And that ultimately leads to the question,
15:46should you get an iPhone 17,
15:47or should you get an iPhone 17 Pro?
15:50Well, I think the decision is actually very easy this year.
15:54The iPhone 17 represents the best value
15:57in the iPhone lineup, and one of the best valued iPhones,
16:01I have personally ever used.
16:03It gets the most features most people would have wanted
16:06from the Pro iPhone from last year,
16:08which means you no longer have to spend more money
16:10to get a better display.
16:12On top of that, Apple increasing the starting storage
16:15to 256 gigabytes without raising the price is a great move,
16:19whereas the iPhone 17 Pro now starts at $300 more
16:24than the 17.
16:25The price difference between these models
16:27is more drastic than it was last year.
16:30And that $300 upgrade to the Pro model for most users
16:34isn't worth it,
16:35because you get an almost identical experience
16:38on the regular 17.
16:40However, of course, there is a clear differentiator
16:42between the capabilities of the camera system.
16:46And if you are an advanced user,
16:48basically the word Pro this year actually means Pro.
16:52And that's where the decision gets easy,
16:54because this year, Apple has made a clear line in the sand
16:58on what user should get the regular iPhone 17,
17:01and what user should get the iPhone 17 Pro,
17:04because I don't think the iPhone 17 Pro represents the sleekest,
17:08most premium iPhone in the lineup anymore.
17:11And the most important consumer-facing features
17:14are on the regular model now.
17:16And unlike previous years, where there was a few gotchas
17:20or storage pain points that hurt the base models,
17:23this year, there isn't.
17:25So for anyone looking for a new iPhone,
17:28the iPhone 17 is the one to get.
17:31Now, that's not saying the Pro model isn't worth it
17:34for some users,
17:35but you really have to be able to take advantage
17:37of a few key areas to make it worth the $300 upgrade.
17:41So that's a combination of factors like better thermals,
17:45better battery life, the extra zoom lens,
17:48and probably the real area where it's worth it
17:50for a very small set of users
17:52are those Pro camera formats and capabilities.
17:56But that is my take on the iPhone 17
17:59versus the iPhone 17 Pro.
18:01Let me know in the comments below,
18:03which phone would you pick and why?
18:05And if you did buy one already,
18:07let me know which one you went with.
18:08As always, I hope this video helped you out
18:10in making an informed decision.
18:12If it did, consider giving me a like.
18:14If you wanna see more, make sure you're subscribed.
18:16And as always, thank you all for watching
18:17and I'll catch you in the next one.