Apple iPhone 17 first impressions: It finally has the display to match its price tag
The regular iPhone finally gets a 120Hz ProMotion display.
Note: This feature was first published on 11 September 2025. Read our full review of the iPhone 17 here.
Let’s not beat about the bush. Apple is finally fixing the thing that keeps me from recommending the regular iPhone to people, and that’s the lack of the ProMotion display. After years of waiting, the regular iPhone finally gets a ProMotion display. It sounds trivial, but given the number of Android phones sporting high refresh rate displays these days, it’s absurd that the iPhone 16 stuck with a 60Hz display. That finally changes this year.
Not only does it get a 120Hz display, but the screen is brighter (up to 3,000 nits) and slightly bigger. It’s now 6.3 inches – up from 6.1 inches in the iPhone 16. The screen is also protected by Ceramic Shield 2, which Apple claims offers 3x better scratch resistance. The upshot of all this is that the regular iPhone finally has a display that matches its price tag. It looks great.
It won’t be a new iPhone without new finishes and, like last year, there’s five to choose from: Lavender, Sage, Mist Blue, White, and Black. Sadly for fans of last year’s Pink, there’s no equivalent finish this year. Compared to last year’s phones, the finishes this year are more subdued. If it were me, Mist Blue and Lavendar would be my picks.
The display finally supports ProMotion, which means the refresh rate can go as high as 120Hz or as low as 1Hz.
Inside, there’s a new chip. The iPhone 17 gets the A19 chip, which has 6 CPU cores and 5 GPU cores, and which Apple claims delivers better performance and power efficiency.
There are other notable improvements, too. Readers will be happy to know that the iPhone 17 starts with 256GB of storage. The battery is also larger, so it now lasts up to 30 hours when watching videos – that’s up from 22 hours in the iPhone 16. The main camera appears to be unchanged, but the ultra wide camera is now a 48-megapixel Fusion unit.
The iPhone 17 has the Camera Control and Action Button.
Taken as a whole, the iPhone 17 has to be one of the best regular iPhone updates in years. Apart from the typical chip update, it also gets better battery life, more storage as standard, and finally, a display that befits its price tag. It could be premature for me to say this, but I think this year, the regular iPhone could finally be the iPhone most people should get.
Last, but not least, Apple is offering all this at a lower price point; what you would have previously paid for a 128GB model, you now get all the above-mentioned upgrades, including double the storage size --- for the same price. If that sounds insane, that’s probably why you should stay tuned for my full review coming up in a few days.
Availability and pricing
Prices of the iPhone 17 start at S$1,299 for the 256GB model and go up to S$1,599 for the 512GB model. Pre-orders begin from 8pm on 12 September, and the phones will go on sale on 19 September.
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