Apple truly hit it out of the park with the base iPhone 17, making it one of the companies best value iPhone models in quite some time. With how many incredible upgrades there are on iPhone 17, it actually makes a comparison to last year’s iPhone 16 Pro model more interesting than you’d expect.
Displays
As mentioned in the headline, these two phones both have incredibly similar displays.
iPhone 17 and iPhone 16 Pro both offer 6.3-inch OLED displays with ProMotion, support for an Always-On Display, 1000 nits of typical max brightness, and 1600 nits when viewing HDR content. They also offer the same resolution and contrast ratio.
Where they differ slightly is in outdoor peak brightness. iPhone 16 Pro maxes out at 2000 nits, whereas iPhone 17 can go up to 3000 nits. Outside of that spec, they’re more or less the same display – which is incredible for a base model iPhone.
Chipsets
iPhone 16 Pro offers the A18 Pro chipset, whereas iPhone 17 offers the A19 chipset. Apple doesn’t publish direct comparison numbers for year over year silicon improvements very often, but expect modest gains in the CPU department. Both of these phones have 8GB of memory, and will support the full array of Apple Intelligence capabilities.
The bigger difference is in the GPU department. While the A18 Pro has a 6-core GPU (vs 5 cores on A19), the A19’s GPU cores have built in neural accelerators, which could potentially come in handy later down the road.
iPhone 17 also has the N1 chip, Apple’s first in-house Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Thread chipset.
Quality of life
iPhone 16 Pro has two key advantages over iPhone 17: a premium build, and some higher-end features to accompany it.
iPhone 16 Pro offers a brushed titanium finish, which looks quite nice. It’s also a lot more durable than aluminum, though it’s less thermally conductive.
Additionally, iPhone 16 Pro offers a faster USB-C port with USB 3 speeds. That’ll allow for 20x faster transfers than the USB-C port on iPhone 17.
Both phones also offer Apple’s camera control button.
Cameras
iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 17 have incredibly similar 48MP main and ultra wide sensors, so you likely can’t go wrong with either phone in that regard. They also both offer 2x crop telephoto shots from the main sensor.
However, iPhone 16 Pro has a dedicated 5x telephoto camera, which can be incredibly important depending on what you’re shooting. For this reason, iPhone 16 Pro likely wins in the rear camera department.
That said, iPhone 17 also has an incredible leg up when it comes to the selfie camera. Apple implemented a new 18MP Center Stage front camera, allowing for much wider selfies, as well as the ability to take landscape selfies without rotating the phone – thanks to a new square sensor.
Battery life
iPhone 17 had a fairly large battery leap over iPhone 16, going from 22 hours of battery playback to 30 hours. However, when comparing to the iPhone 16 Pro, the upgrade isn’t as massive – with iPhone 17 gaining 3 hours of video playback. That isn’t nothing, though it isn’t exactly a difference I’d lose sleep over.
The bigger difference between these two models is charging speed. iPhone 17 can fast charge up to 50% in 20 minutes using Apple’s new 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max – compared to 50% in 30 minutes with iPhone 16 Pro.
iPhone 17 also supports up to 25W of MagSafe charging, versus 22W on iPhone 16 Pro. You’ll need a capable 30W power adapter for either phone.
Wrap up
To sum it up nicely, iPhone 17 is a nicer package for the masses – though iPhone 16 Pro still has a number of great advantages, especially in the camera department. Long term, I’m sure both of these phones will hold up equally as well, so ultimately the decision is in your hands.
I’d say the key reason to go for iPhone 17 is if you value the selfie camera and having more appealing colors, whereas everyone else should lean towards the iPhone 16 Pro.
iPhone 16 Pro also has a key advantage of having a larger variant, with the iPhone 16 Pro Max. iPhone 17 doesn’t have a larger variant this year, unless you count the iPhone Air.
As for pricing, you can currently pick up a 128GB iPhone 16 Pro on Amazon for around $736, a 256GB model for around $819, and a 256GB iPhone 16 Pro Max for around $959. This all compares to iPhone 17 at $829 from Apple (or $799 if you activate with a carrier).
Which of these two phones would you pick? Let us know in the comments.
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