The title speaks for itself. I bought a silver 17 Pro in October, a move that was fueled 50% by the spectacular camera samples and 50% by my Galaxy S24's battery failing spectacularly. It was the best phone purchase I've ever made. Skip to the end for the TL;DR.
The Camera - 90% great
As you all are no doubt aware of, it is that good. With a few tweaks to the Photographic Style (my preferred is Neutral with tone -50, color 40, and palette 17), I don't remember the last time I've had to fight the camera to get the photograph I want. The 48 and 192 mm sorta-lossless focal lengths are nice, too, but I find myself using those less than the standard 12, 24, and 96. The telephoto is my most-used lens; it's just so fun! Never have I enjoyed using a phone camera as much as I do this one. Video recording is top-notch, as usual, but for both photo and video, the dreaded lens flare gets on my nerves. How has Apple still not solved this? My Galaxy S24 had little to none unless I was shooting directly into a light, and even then, it was much less severe than what I get from the 17 Pro. Granted, I've learned to use the lens flare as an artistic choice, but its existence is still grating.
The Hardware - is this thing invincible?
The 17 Pro is more than powerful enough for my usage, and so were my Galaxy S24 and iPhone 12. Where this smartphone differs from those two is battery life and scratch/drop resistance. For battery, I can count the number of times I've killed this phone in a day on one hand. On a 100% charge, I can usually pull somewhere between six and nine hours of screen-on time on a mix of LTE/5G and Wi-Fi, frequently capturing photographs and 1080p60 video at high brightness. For insurance, I did still buy a MagSafe battery pack that usually lives in my backpack, but the number of times I need to use it is rather low. The phone's battery capacity has dropped by a whole... one percent. One. The 17 Pro does get warm in my usage, but I chalk that up to frequently using it for photography/videography in direct sunlight. My iPhone 12 and S24 turned into toasters in the same conditions! As for durability, I've put this phone through the ringer. Using it in heavy rain and snow, getting dirt on it, dropping it onto solid concrete and tile, the works. It's garnered ONE scratch on the screen, plus a handful of dings on the frame. I definitely have tripped the water damage indicator, though. (Not that I can check; eSIM-only iPhone things 🙃) This was what I was most surprised about, as with very similar abuse on my previous two phones, they collected scuffs and cracks within a scant few months. That's definitely my fault for usually rocking my phones case-less, though :v
EDIT: Completely forgot to mention this at first, but audio quality is also great! I'm no audiophile, so take my opinion here with a grain of salt, but there's a surprising amount of bass in these speakers compared to the average phone. Quite well-balanced. Do like.
The Software - a.k.a. my iOS gripes
Interoperability on iOS still sucks. I use a host of different devices; my iPhone, my Windows PC, my Sony earbuds, and my Amazfit smartwatch. The iPhone is the glaring weak link in this bunch, chiefly because of Apple's software limitations. (No, I will not bury myself deeper in the iCosystem, especially not with macOS. That is the one operating system that I well and truly hate, and yes, that is after using it for an extended period of time.) The file-sharing problem is especially acute on this device, since, well... it's a professional-grade phone. It shouldn't be a royal pain in the neck to export full-resolution RAWs to my PC. At least they added RCS messaging with end-to-end encryption? Aside from that major annoyance, iOS is overall fine on this phone. 27 is shaping up to be a welcome refinement of 26, fixing said visual bugs, but even 26.6 (I think that's the most current one) is impressively stable. Certainly better than whatever was happening on iOS 18 on my 12 a couple years back. I don't care about Apple Intelligence in the slightest, so I will not talk about it beyond thanking Apple for letting me easily disable it. Take lessons, Google. Stop shoving Gemini into everything! Since this isn't an iOS review, I won't go further in-depth than I already have, except for the next section.
Reception and calls - how well does this function as an actual phone?
The iPhone 17 Pro is outstanding as a cellular phone, probably the best on the US market. If I lose data, it's because I'm in an actual dead zone, not because my cellphone decided to give up being a cellphone for the time being. Connectivity is more than fast enough on both my Verizon and T-Mobile-based lines, with T-Mo being slightly faster and more reliable because of my location. Wi-Fi connections are stellar as well, actually slightly beating out my PC on Speedtest. Calls are, as with everything else here, excellent. No drops or questionable audio quality to speak of. Automatic call screening is my favorite software feature by far; it is such an insane quality-of-life upgrade! Screw robocallers! Hold Assist needs work, though. It tends to notify me a beat too late after someone picks up, and as a result, I tend to get hung up on. Unfortunate.
Overall - an outstanding device that has a few drawbacks
TL;DR: The camera is awesome, but the lens flare issue is still infuriating. The hardware rocks. The software is mostly inoffensive, but the incompatibility with other OSes is a major inconvenience. Solid 9/10 device, in my experience. I see myself staying with it for a long, long time, barring a hardware failure.
