Hands-on: iPhone 17 Pro — Unibody, camera plateau & battery gains

I had a brief hands-on with the new iPhone 17 Pro (Cosmic Orange) at Apple Park. First impressions: the unibody matte finish feels softer than the iPhone 16 Pro, the new camera plateau is more pronounced, and Apple has reorganized internals to free space for a larger battery — paired with the A19 Pro chip this should yield improved battery life.

What I tried

• Cosmic Orange unibody with a softer, matte feel; only the lighter rounded rectangle area on the back uses Ceramic Shield — the metallic orange areas are aluminum and the camera plateau is uncovered.
• Camera plateau houses three 48MP Fusion cameras; viewfinder showed zoom up to 8x and a 4x telephoto option.
• Centerstage selfie and new camera app (iOS 26) add auto-rotating aspect ratio and dual-camera capture — these require navigating newly reorganized menus.
• Camera control button on the right remains usable though slightly different from the iPhone 16 Pro’s feel.

Notes & next steps

I didn’t have time to fully test 4x/8x zoom quality or long-term battery performance — full review pending. The iPhone Air line is impressively thin and seductive in its own way, though colors are more subdued.

Official product page: Apple — iPhone 17

Questions? Would you upgrade from a 16 Pro or wait for full reviews?

Article inspired by hands-on coverage; original reporting sources not linked here per instructions.