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Ahhh, can you feel it? The air in New York is nowhere near crisp; it’s 80° and muggy. I’m almost ready to hit the On x Beams x REI collab and go camping. I’m still looking for my fall jacket. And football weather isn’t quite here yet, but I know it’s fall because I’ve got a new iPhone in my pocket. My phone’s images are so crisp, that even my Leica is on the shelf for the moment. And like clockwork, I’m fielding questions at home, with friends, and around the office: “Is the new iPhone worth buying?”
It’s a dumb question. I mean, I understand the ask, but the real question is “If I want to upgrade, which new iPhone should I buy?” That’s because the obvious answer is that the new iPhones are always good—better than last year’s models, if that’s your barometer for “worth buying.” But that doesn’t mean you’re the perfect candidate for an iPhone 17 Pro Max. For example, as I love to tell people, I’m an iPhone Mini devotee. It’s been half a decade since I last bought a phone because I love my Mini. I don’t watch TV or game on my phone except for when I’m obligated to for work. Funnily enough, it makes me the perfect iPhone tester. I can’t be swayed by refresh speeds, processing power, or a giant stupid screen. I care about taking pictures of my cats or trees in the park. I care about how good the microphone is at Shazam-ing songs. I’m measuring if the battery will last all day at the Ryder Cup, where I’ll constantly have to use the proprietary ticketing app.
So anyway, that’s what’s coloring this review. If you want something more than my deeply un-scientific review, go read the Apple website; it tells you everything you need to know. But after a week of playing around with the new iPhones, I came up with a little football analogy: the iPhone 17 Pro, that’s the QB; the Air, your star wide-out; and the regular ol’ 17 is the offensive line. This all means nothing at this point in the story, but by the end you’ll see what I’m saying.
iPhone 17 Air: Actually the Best iPhone Release in Years
iPhone Air
$999.00 at apple.com
I don’t think we get as many big releases in phones anymore. Nothing ever wows me because the new product cycle is yearly. Most changes that tech brands obsess over feel incremental to someone that’s not reading MacRumors or 9to5Mac.
The Air does not feel incremental. It feels like the successor to how Apple made phones before it fell into a groove post iPhone X. In the Esquire office, we were talking about how exciting the iPhone 3 through iPhone 5 years were. The form of the phone changed pretty drastically from year-to-year. The 3G was rounded on the back and felt really ergonomic. The 4 and 4s set the foundation for the look and design of the iPhone over the past 15 years. The iPhone 5 is when 4G was introduced, and the capabilities of a smartphone really took off. Then with the 5c, Apple decided to just make it in an indestructible colored plastic. (I’m on board with Addison Rae, our most famous iPhone 5c devotee.)
Point is, the Air feels radically different from the phones that came before it. It’s freakishly light. There’s nothing I can say here that will really tell you that; you have to go to a store and hold one. It’s also freakishly strong. At my Apple briefing, we got to see a few videos from the secret testing labs where robot arms exerted somewhere around 130 pounds of force on the phone. It flexed to a kind of sickening degree, enough to serve as a mimed “C,” but then it snaps right back into shape. It’s able to do this because Apple has developed Ceramic Shield 2, so these phones are more bend, crack, and scratch resistant than ever.
Holding an Air is where you get the real joy. When it comes to specs, they’re totally fine. It’s industry and Apple standard. The battery lasts all day for me, but there are external batteries you can buy for the Air if you’re a hardcore streamer. The camera is as good as any other mainline phone out there. The phone is responsive, and the screen looks great.
So who should buy the Air? For me, it’s the new phone of the not-that-tech-obsessed crowd. It’s the type of guy that we build our Luxury Gifts for Men story for. You like the new, shiny thing (wide receiver mentality). You don’t need the most powerful model in the lineup, but if you’re buying a new phone, you’re going to buy the one that everyone’s talking about. This is that iPhone.
iPhone 17 Pro: The Standard Bearer
17 Pro
$1099.00 at apple.com
I’m going to say far less about the new 17 and 17 Pro, because these two are iterations on established forms in the iPhone lineup. The 17 Pro is easily the best phone I’ve ever used. It’s stupid fast and responsive. It’s so stupid fast and so responsive that Apple has put big investment into its cooling mechanism. Even under the massive load of constantly running Apple Intelligence, the phone never gets hot. I handed the phone to my wife several times for her long-hours of video streaming (podcasts on YouTube) that she listens to while playing Balatro, a combo that usually heats up her well-used iPhone 15 Pro and leads to a bit of throttling. Was never a problem. From her phone, it was a big jump. From my iPhone 12 Mini that now gets hot if I listen to music when the weather is above 85°, it’s night and day.
Okay, here is where I’ll flesh out to that football analogy I introduced up top. The iPhone 17 Air is the star wide receiver of this line up. It’s tall, handsome, and wants to run its go routes every play, but it can do the high-level stop-n-gos and comebacks when you tell it to. The 17 Pro is the quarterback, capable of thinking at far higher levels than the other two models and tasked with staying cool under immense processing pressure.
I’m recommending the Pro first to the nerds. Y’all, it’s better than anything else on the market. Secondly, it’s for the guy that cares about everything this magazine cares for. It has battery life to take you through streaming TV on a long flight. It has an insane camera for snapping pictures on your safari. And it’s business-oriented enough if you’re only using it to fire off emails all day.
And another bonus on the new Pro, I absolutely love the Cosmic Orange colorway. I’m an orange lover, and this is a really, really good shade. It’s classic Apple color story, something the OG Mac lovers will be happy about.
iPhone 17
iPhone 17
$799.00 at apple.com
The mainline iPhone is good, totally fine but nothing I’m oohing and aahing over. Everything is better than it was on the 16. To continue my football analogy (sorry nerds), I’m staying on the offensive side of the ball. The base iPhone 17 is the o-line. The other two don’t work if you don’t have this one. The cutting edge cooling tech in the Pro or the incredible durability of the Air are built on the no-bullshit regular 17. The cameras are wonderful. It has the Ceramic Shield 2, so you can go caseless and still beat it up. And there’s a suite of nice pastel-leaning colors.
Like a good offensive line, the mainline is undervalued by the general public, but it’s got everything that this lineup is built on. If you buy one of the other two phones, chances are you’re the type of person that will upgrade next year anyway. If you buy this phone, you can hold out until we hit iPhone 20 (iPhone XX?).
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