Wired reviews Apple’s new iPhone 17: ‘Close to perfection’

Apple’s iPhone 17
Apple’s new iPhone 17, featuring the new Center Stage front camera that takes selfies to the next level, a powerful 48MP Fusion Main camera with an optical-quality 2x Telephoto, and a new 48MP Fusion Ultra Wide camera that captures expansive scenes and macro photography in more detail, is now available. The 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion is bigger and brighter, enabling supersmooth scrolling, immersive gaming, and improved efficiency. And with the new Ceramic Shield 2, the front cover is tougher than any smartphone glass or glass-ceramic, with 3x better scratch resistance than the previous generation and reduced glare. It is all powered by the latest-generation A19 chip for higher performance and longevity.
iPhone 17 starts with 256GB of storage — double the entry storage from the previous generation — and also offers a 512GB option, in five beautiful colors: black, lavender, mist blue, sage, and white.
Julian Chokkattu for Wired:
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Next to the flashy redesign of the iPhone 17 Pro and the ultrathin, ultralight iPhone Air, the iPhone 17 may feel quite plain. But I’m here to tell you that I don’t think there has ever been a better base model in the annual iPhone lineup.
It helps that the iPhone 17 has many of the features of its pricier siblings, from the brighter screen with ProMotion and Ceramic Shield 2 to the new square-shaped 18-MP selfie camera…
I’ve been very impressed with battery life. After a week of use, I’m consistently hitting more than six hours of screen-on time, and some of those days involved using GPS navigation, music streaming, and hours of doomscrolling on Instagram Reels. I have yet to find myself worried that my phone is going to die. It easily bests the iPhone Air’s battery life and comes close to the iPhone 17 Pro, but if you want the absolute best run time, look to the iPhone 17 Pro Max…
The A19 chip powering the whole phone is an excellent performer. Seriously, for the vast majority of apps and games, this processor kills. Folks who routinely download the most demanding mobile games, like Assassin’s Creed Mirage, will find it a little limiting. I cranked the graphics to the max, and the game frequently stuttered and even froze a few times. Not to mention the iPhone 17 got really hot and nearly uncomfortable to hold. That’s because it doesn’t have the vapor chamber cooling system of the Pro models. Most games will be fine—Monster Survivor ran without a hitch—but heavy mobile gamers may want the A19 Pro chip that’s in the iPhone 17 Pro…
I trotted around Brooklyn with the iPhone 17 and the Pixel 10, a direct competitor at $799. For the most part, the iPhone 17’s main camera delivered slightly sharper and more natural-looking results than the Pixel 10. The results from the ultrawide were very similar to the iPhone 17 Pro models and were far less noisy than the shots from the Pixel 10. It further demolished the competition in video capture—even trouncing the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge—with better stabilization and brighter, sharper footage.

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MacDailyNews Take: Another strong review (Wired’s rating:
9/10) for Apples workhorse iPhone 17. Read it in full here.

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