One of the benefits to holding on to your phone for as long as possible — beside the fact that you're saving money — is that when you finally do upgrade, the sheer volume of improvements can take your breath away. That's what happened to me when I jumped from an aging iPhone 12 to the iPhone 17.
When I busted my iPhone 12 a few months ago, I wasn't planning on holding out for Apple's latest phone. But after checking out our iPhone 17 review I decided to move everything over from the iPhone 12 to the iPhone 17, switched my number over to an eSIM — a remarkably easy process — and sat back to drink in all the changes that have taken place in the five years since I've switched phones.
It's been quite an eye-opening experience. Here's what's stood out for me immediately after jumping up several generations of iPhone to the iPhone 17.
My God, 256GB if a lot of storage
The passage of time may have wiped this from your memory, but when the iPhone 12 came out, Apple still thought 64GB was an acceptable amount of storage for its base model. Let me assure you: It was not then, and it especially is not now.
Over the summer, whenever it was time to upgrade to a new version of the iOS 26 public beta for testing, I had to first block out time to offload apps, delete photos and otherwise pare away whatever I had stored on my phone just to have room to download the software update. It felt like striping an airplane down to the barest essentials just so that I'd have enough fuel to stay airborne.
Apple upgraded the base storage on its phones to 128GB the year after the iPhone 12's release, but I'm guessing even that felt pretty stingy to people with a lot of photos, apps and files on their phone. Well, the iPhone 17 addresses that concern by doubling the storage to 256GB. And Apple even did that without a price hike, charging the same $799 that's been in place since the iPhone 14.
I'm currently using 85.9GB of storage on my iPhone, which in the old days, would have broken the laws of physics. Now that I've switched to the iPhone 17, I've got another 170GB of capacity to do with as I please.
Way better battery life
The iPhone 12 offered decent battery life in its day, but it's day came and went some time ago. As phones age, they're less likely to be able to hold on to a charge the way they could in their prime. Throw the power demands of iOS 26 into the mix, and my iPhone 12 simply couldn't last from dusk until dawn without requiring me to top off its battery.
That's not a problem with the iPhone 17. Teardowns indicate this model has a 3,692 mAh battery, which is certainly a leap forward from the 2,815 mAh cell inside the iPhone 12. I'm also reaping the power management benefits of a much-newer system-on-chip in the form of Apple's A19 silicon, compare to the iPhone 12's A14 Bionic chipset.
As a result, I no longer have to venture into power-saving mode at the end of the day like I did with my older iPhone, and there have been times when I've not charged the phone overnight and still had enough battery life left the next morning to get a jump on my day.
And the iPhone 17 isn't even the longest-lasting of the new models. Its 12-hour, 47-minute time on our battery test is certainly respectable, but it's not even close to what the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max can pull off. Both those phones landed on our best phone battery life rankings, so if long-lasting devices are on your shopping list, consider going Pro.
Fast-refreshing display, at last
I don't know why Apple waited until 2025 to bring a fast-refreshing display to its entry-level flagship phone, when that was a feature its rivals had long-ago embraced. I mean, there were much cheaper devices than the iPhone offering 120Hz refresh rates when Apple was still stubbornly sticking to 60Hz.
But that doesn't matter now. Because the iPhone 17 has a display with an adaptive refresh rate, and I have the iPhone 17. And everything from scrolling to gaming looks much better than it did on my previous iPhone.
If you're on the fence about the merits of a fast-refreshing screen, head down to your local iPhone store and put your 60Hz iPhone next to the iPhone 17 on display. Then, try scrolling down a web page on both devices. I predict you'll be flagging down an Apple Store employee to help you upgrade in no time.
Camera control button — what is it good for?
I've heaped praise on the iPhone 17 so far, so let's talk about something I'm still adjusting to with the new phone — the Camera Control button. My arsenal of test devices tops out at an iPhone 15 Pro, so I never really had the chance to spend time with this button, which debuted on last year's iPhone 16 models.
And it's been a rough introduction.
Part of the problem is Apple places the Camera Control button right where I'm used to reaching for the phone. As a result, I tend to launch the camera when all I want to do is pick up my iPhone. I'm also dealing with years of muscle memory that have trained me to press the Camera shortcut on my lock screen when I want to quickly launch the Camera app, so perhaps I'll learn that there's a button for that now and I can use the space on my lock screen for another shortcut.
The Camera Control button is a great shortcut for using Visual Intelligence, where you can essentially turn your iPhone's camera into a search tool. But again, my experience with that feature has been limited to the iPhone 15 Pro where a lock screen shortcut can pull off the same trick. Maybe this is something I'll get used to over time, but in these early days of iPhone 17 use, it's an adjustment.
Fun with the Dynamic Island
As with the Camera Control button, the iPhone 17 is my first extended exposure to the Dynamic Island feature that Apple rolled out, first with the iPhone 14 Pro models and then to the rest of the lineup. But since I've primarily used iPhones with notched displays in recent years, I was largely unaware of the Dynamic Island's game. It turns out this is a very helpful feature.
I do a lot of the cooking my household, using Siri voice commands to set timers to know how long to braise, boil and otherwise prepare different parts of a recipe. I like the fact that if I need to use my phone to do something else — whether that's to double-check that same recipe online or respond to a text that came in — the timer is still accessible from the Dynamic Island so that I don't lose track of things.
iPhone 17 outlook
I'm sure other benefits of my iPhone 17 upgrade will emerge the longer I use this phone. (And given how long I stuck with the iPhone 12, it could be years before I'm ready to upgrade again.) But after just a week, I like what I've seen so far. And I imagine other people upgrading after a long time with the same device will have a similar experience.
More from Tom's Guide
- The iPhone 17 got a lot of big updates from Apple — but there's one thing missing
- I just switched from iPhone 16 Pro Max to iPhone Air — what I like and what I don't
- iPhone 17 deals — here's how to get Apple's new phones for free
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