Apple iPhone 17 Pro vs. iPhone 16 Pro

We’ve gotten used to minor iterative changes with recent iPhone generations, but this year’s lineup is looking like a bit more of a significant upgrade – the 17 Pro brings an all-new build and two new cameras, plus the mandatory next-gen chipset.

The 2024 Pro models may have been discontinued on Apple’s official store, but you can still easily find them at retailers and carriers alike, and you might be wondering whether to save a little by getting last year’s 16 Pro, or the 17 Pro is the way to go. Or you may be looking to upgrade from your year-old 16 Pro and you need some convincing as to the benefits of that move. We’ll do a quick comparison to help you out.

Table of Contents:

For starters, you can compare the complete specs sheets or directly continue with our editor’s assessment in the following text.

Size comparison

If there’s one change that can’t go unnoticed this year, that’s the new design and build. Apple is replacing the previously best titanium with the new-old thing – aluminum. The new unibody housing should help with heat dissipation but it’s not gotten any lighter – in fact, it’s even a few grams heavier. Perhaps you won’t notice the difference, since neither handset is particularly light to begin with.

The 17 Pro is half a millimeter thicker which would normally be a tangible difference, but here it’s negated by the slight curvature of its back making it feel more compact than it is. The boxier 16 Pro doesn’t play such tricks on you. In this smaller size, both are nicely comfortable to hold and use (compared to the Maxes) but there’s something slightly more premium in the way the old model is finished.

Both generations are IP68-rated for dust and water resistance, and Apple says they should be good after being submerged as deep as 6m for 30 minutes. That does tend to deteriorate as the handsets accumulate hits and drops, and we can’t be sure which design will be better in the long run. There’s every chance that the 16 Pro will hold up better to scratches on the back and sides though, while the 17 Pro’s anodization layer may be prone to chipping along the sharp edges of the camera plateau.

Apple reimagined the color selection radically this year, ditching a staple black option, which you can still find on the 16 Pro. The new model’s Cosmic Orange is more striking than anything you can get on last year’s model, while the new blue is a nice mix of fresh yet still understated. The 16 Pro’s options are all a little bit bland (but, again, there’s a black one).

Display comparison

The display on the new generation is more or less the same as last year. Still, a notable difference can be found in its protection layer – the Ceramic Shield 2 on the 17 Pro is harder to scratch than the first-gen Ceramic Shield on the iPhone 16 Pro. In addition to that, it has an antireflective treatment.

The basics remain unchanged – it’s a 6.3-inch LTPO OLED display with adaptive 120Hz refresh rate and Dolby Vision support. Theoretical brightness numbers have been tweaked a little and Apple now says the 17 Pro should be good for 1,600nits in HDR versus the 2,000nits on the previous model, and it should now allow 3,000nits in some cases. In our testing, the iPhone 17 Pro was good for a little over 800nits when adjusting the slider manually vs 900nits on the 16 Pro.

Now, the 16 Pro could reach up to around 1,800nits under our test conditions, while the 17 Pro maxes out at around a thousand. That said, both phones will achieve brightness beyond 2,000nits when lighting up smaller portions of the screen – we got over 2,700nits on the 17 Pro and 2,200-ish nits on the 16 Pro, effectively meaning the new model has an advantage, only not one that shows up in our usual line of testing.

Whatever advantage the new display might have in max brightness isn’t as important, we reckon, as its lower reflectivity and better scratch resistance. Even so, both phones have wonderful screens that wouldn’t leave you wanting.

Battery life

The iPhone 17 Pro is treated to a relatively large battery capacity increase, the most notable one this generation. While last year’s model had a 3,582mAh battery, this one comes in at 3,998mAh on our version with a physical SIM slot (nearly 12% more) or even 4,252mAh on the eSIM only variant (19% more).

In our testing, we measured a meaningful improvement in video playback and gaming, essentially the same call time, and a bit of a drop in the web browsing test. We’re not seeing battery life as a big differentiator between these two, but if one of the numbers speaks to you more than the others, so be it.

Charging speed

We’re normally left disappointed with iPhones’ charging speed, but the 17 Series improves things quite significantly.

Sure, this year Apple has adopted a new supported charging standard (the AVS extension of the Power Delivery protocol) and has produced a new adapter – the ’40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max’ (Amazon link) – but they’ve apparently also simply decided to adopt more sensible charging curves on the iPhone 17s.

In the absence of that particular adapter (it’s only available in the USA for now), we tested the iPhone 17 Pro with other makers’ Power Delivery chargers (and aftermarket ones too) and we recorded a decent improvement in top-up speeds, compared to the 16 Pro – not as significant a difference as the one we saw between the two generations of Pro Maxes, but still a welcome development.

There is also support for fast wireless charging for up to 25W via MagSafe as well as third-party Qi2-compliant chargers.

Speaker test

iPhone speaker systems don’t change much in concept and the two Pros we have here sport the usual setup with a dedicated bottom-firing unit and the earpiece that joins in to form a stereo pair. As teardowns have shown, the 17 Pro’s earpiece-side speaker is quite smaller compared to the 16 Pro’s, but the new bottom speaker is a tiny bit bigger. The result is a slightly quieter setup, but one that sounds more composed and cleaner than that of the 16 Pro. The difference is subtle and not really one that can sway you in either direction, though.

Performance

The iPhone 17 Pro is powered by the Apple A19 Pro chipset – that’s one more than the A18 Pro in the 16 Pro. It’s still got a 6-core CPU with a 2+4 core configuration, but there are newer cores that are also clocked higher. The GPU is improved too, and so too should be the NPU, but both maintain the exact core count as on the previous model.

The new generation comes with 12GB of RAM vs. the 8GB of the 16 Pro. Both models can be had with up 1TB of storage, but the 17 Pro starts at a sensible 256GB, while the 16 Pro’s 128GB base version is a bit limiting.

Apple is also making a moderately big deal out of the newly implemented vapor chamber cooling solution, which works in tandem with the aluminum body to get heat away from the chips faster than the previous model’s setup could.

Benchmark performance

The iPhone 17 Pro showed significant improvements in performance over the already pretty powerful 16 Pro in all tests. There is also a meaningful improvement in CPU performance stability, while GPU stability was less impressive. Either way, the 17 Pro is the more powerful handset, of course.

Camera comparison

The 17 Pro brings a couple of improvements to the camera system – a new telephoto camera and a new selfie shooter. The telephoto now offers 4x zoom and features a 48MP 1/2.55″ sensor in place of the 5x zoom 12MP 1/3.06″ configuration of the predecessor. Thanks to the new, larger sensor, Apple is also promising ‘lossless’ 8x zooming via sensor crop.

The front-facing camera of the 17 Pro will get you 18MP shots at 20mm in either portrait or landscape orientation without rotating the phone, while the 16 Pro’s 12MP 23mm selfies can only match the phone’s orientation.

Meanwhile, the main camera and the ultrawide remain unchanged this generation, at least looking at the specs.

What did change with iOS 26 on the 17 Pro is the camera app, but that’s also been rolled out to the 16 Pro, so it’s not something that will split the two.

Image quality

Daylight

Main camera comparison at 1x shows that the new phone is a bit more expressive with colors and contrast than the old generation (represented here by the iPhone 16 Pro non-Max and its identical camera system), and that’s probably why we like its photos better.

Daylight photo samples, main camera, 1x: iPhone 17 Pro • iPhone 16 Pro

At 2x zoom, the 17 Pro shows a meaningful improvement in sharpness over the previous generation, good as it may have been itself.

Daylight photo samples, main camera, 2x: iPhone 17 Pro • iPhone 16 Pro

The new telephoto camera isn’t necessarily an improvement over that of the 16 Pro. While it can capture 24MP files, they look softer at 1:1, and even at 12MP, they’re about as good as those from the 16 Pro, not better.

Daylight photo samples, telephoto camera: iPhone 17 Pro (4x) • iPhone 16 Pro (5x)

You’d expect to see more of an advantage for the 17 Pro at 8x, but it doesn’t seem to be there. If anything, it’s almost like the iPhone 16 Pro’s results are sharper, if a little bit grainier.

Daylight photo samples, telephoto camera, 8x: iPhone 17 Pro • iPhone 16 Pro

Ultrawide camera comparisons reveal little improvement – you could argue that having the 24MP shots on the iPhone 17 Pro is an advantage all in itself, but we can’t spot a meaningful detail advantage, and if you use the new model’s 12MP mode, things will look the same.

Daylight photo samples, ultrawide camera, 0.5x: iPhone 17 Pro • iPhone 16 Pro

Selfies

It’s undeniable that it’s cool to be able to take landscape selfies with a phone held in portrait – the 17 Pro can do that, but not the 16 Pro. At 18MP you get more resolution, and it also goes with a wider lens – so you can have more people on the frame. Pixel-level quality is similar, but the 17 Pro wins big on versatility.

Selfie samples: iPhone 17 Pro • iPhone 16 Pro

Low light

In the dark, both phones will get you similarly great shots at 1x zoom.

Low-light photo samples, main camera, 1x: iPhone 17 Pro • iPhone 16 Pro

But at 2x zoom, the 17 Pro shows a more easily noticeable improvement over the previous generation.

Low-light photo samples, main camera, 2x: iPhone 17 Pro • iPhone 16 Pro

Switching to the telephotos, the 17 Pro’s results don’t quite excite in comparison to the 16 Pro’s – dare we say that the previous generation might just be a little bit better?

Low-light photo samples, telephoto camera: iPhone 17 Pro (4x) • iPhone 16 Pro (5x)

Neither phone is producing likeable results at 8x and we’re not really seeing an upgrade with the 17 Pro.

Low-light photo samples, telephoto camera, 8x: iPhone 17 Pro • iPhone 16 Pro

Low-light photo samples, ultrawide camera, 0.5x: iPhone 17 Pro • iPhone 16 Pro

Video quality

The two phones have wide-ranging video-recording capabilities, including 4K capture at either 60, 30, or 24fps with all of the cameras. The primary camera on the back can also do 4K120, at both 1x and 2x zoom. Dolby Vision recording is available in all modes on the new model, while the 16 Pro can’t do it at 4K120. ProRes is available on both models, while the 17 Pro also features ProRes RAW and Apple Log 2. On both phones, some of the higher-quality modes require saving to external storage in order to work.

Daylight videos are barely distinguishable between the two phones in terms of detail, and those are some of the nicest videos you can have – from any of the cameras. Perhaps the iPhone 17 Pro has a minor advantage at 8x, if you insist on looking that closely. There are very subtle differences in color reproduction, with the new model leaning slightly warmer, and while we do appreciate that, it’s nowhere near being a meaningful difference.

Below we have a few framegrabs from the videos taken by the two phones at each focal length, so the video quality is easier to compare to one another.

Daylight video samples, iPhone 17 Pro: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 4x • 8x

Daylight video samples, iPhone 16 Pro: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 5x • 8x

In the dark, the iPhone 17 Pro Max has an advantage in sharpness on the ultrawide and on the main camera – at both 1x and 2x. It’s also superior when comparing the telephotos’ native focal lengths, as well as at 8x. So a win across the board for the iPhone 17 Pro Max for low-light video.

Low-light video samples, iPhone 17 Pro: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 4x • 8x

Low-light video samples, iPhone 16 Pro: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 5x • 8x

Verdict

The iPhone 17 Pro is undoubtedly superior to the 16 Pro in most ways – as it should be with every new generation. That’s not to say that it’s the obviously better option between the two, but we are still leaning that way ourselves.

Admittedly, the new design isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but at least it’s a breath of fresh air after several generations of iPhones that looked more or less the same. Two interesting colorways and one classic one sounds like a better variety than the dull options of the iPhone 16 Pro, though it could be argued that the outgoing model is a bit more premium-looking.

We observed a bit of an improvement in charging speed and, in some metrics, in battery life too, so maybe the 17 Pro will give you better autonomy than the 16 Pro. The performance improvement is undeniable, and stability has gotten better too.

There are some advantages for the new model in the camera system. One of them is the new selfie camera which offers higher resolution and a wider field of view, in addition to the convenience of shooting in landscape with the phone held in portrait. We also noticed a meaningful improvement in low-light video recording which wasn’t something that the specsheets would reveal. The new telephoto camera, all in itself, isn’t necessarily substantially better than the old one, though.

The iPhone 16 Pro could still be appealing for those that aren’t fans of the new generation’s design. There are also some savings to be had if you pick last year’s model, but we’re still debating what difference is significant enough to make it worth settling for year-old tech – 10% doesn’t feel like it, but maybe 20%?