Hands-on: iPhone 17 Pro — Cosmic Orange first impressions

Apple has announced the iPhone 17 series, and I got a quick hands-on with the iPhone 17 Pro in the new “Cosmic Orange” finish. Here are the key takeaways from the brief demo:

• Design & feel: The Cosmic Orange model uses a matte, soft-touch-like finish on an aluminum unibody. The finish feels different from the iPhone 16 Pro and offers a refined grip.
• Camera plateau & materials: Only the lighter rounded rectangle behind the cameras is covered with Ceramic Shield; the rest is exposed aluminum unibody. The camera plateau houses three 48MP Fusion cameras.
• Camera zoom: During the demo I saw zoom options in the viewfinder up to 8x (Apple calls some options “optical quality”). I didn’t have extended time to fully test the 4x telephoto vs the 8x mode—full review pending.
• Controls: The new unibody retains a right-side camera control button that is still easy to press, though I’m currently more used to the iPhone 16 Pro button feel.
• Centerstage selfie & iOS 26: The updated Centerstage selfie system now supports features like auto-rotating aspect ratio and dual-camera video capture. These features are integrated into a redesigned camera app in iOS 26 and may require a bit of menu navigation to enable.

Quick verdict: The redesign and the new finish are more noticeable in person than in photos. The camera changes are intriguing, but we’ll need longer hands-on testing to confirm Apple’s claims on zoom and image quality.

Learn more from Apple: https://www.apple.com/iphone-17/

Search on Amazon (affiliate): https://www.amazon.com/s?k=iPhone+17+Pro&tag=f1rede-20

Note: This post is based on a short hands-on demo; a full review will follow after extended testing.