iPhone 17 is official with 120Hz refresh rate, two 48MP cameras, 256GB base storage

The iPhone Air may have stolen the show at Apple's big event today with its thinness, the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max may have the best features, but the iPhone 17 also exists. It made its official debut as well, and it's actually a pretty impressive upgrade.

It comes with a bigger and brighter 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR screen that, for the first time in a non-Pro iPhone, features ProMotion - adaptive refresh rate up to 120Hz. Thanks to this, you also get the Always-On display, showing the time, widgets, and Live Activities at a glance, since the refresh rate can go down to 1Hz when the display isn't used.

On top of the screen is Apple's Ceramic Shield 2, with a new Apple-designed coating for three times better scratch resistance and improved anti-reflection to reduce glare. Peak brightness is 3,000 nits, the highest ever on an iPhone, and you also get two times better outdoor contrast than with the iPhone 16.

Powering the iPhone 17 is Apple's new A19 chip, built on a 3nm process. Its six-core CPU is 1.5x faster than the A15 Bionic in the iPhone 13, according to Apple, and the five-core GPU is more than twice as fast as the A15 Bionic's. If you're wondering why Apple is comparing performance to a four-year old iPhone, it's most likely because it aims to get iPhone 13 owners to switch to the iPhone 17.