At the end of every year, one of the top tech reviewers on YouTube, Marques Brownlee (aka MKBHD), holds his annual Smartphone Awards, and for this year’s event, Apple’s iPhone lineup was awarded four superlatives, but the star of the show was that MBKHD selected the base iPhone 17 as the “Phone of the Year,” and such an achievement should not go unnoticed. I particularly agree with his selection, and the reason is so simple.
For a few years, there were at least two features that were exclusive to the Pro iPhone models: ProMotion technology and the Always-On Display. This year, Apple’s standard iPhone 17 gets both of these features for the first time; that model even has the exact same display size/specs as those of the (smaller) iPhone 17 Pro. Additionally, the base iPhone 17 gets the same, improved Center Stage camera that lets you take higher-resolution 18MP selfies in either portrait or landscape orientation, all while holding the phone in a natural position. Even better, the iPhone 17 now starts at 256GB of storage, so all of these great features further blur the lines between the regular iPhone 17 and the higher-end iPhone 17 Pro. This makes the iPhone 17 the best-valued iPhone we’ve ever seen in years, and I’d highly recommend anyone with an older iPhone to consider just getting the base iPhone 17 because Apple makes it so darn good that Apple just knocked its Android competitors within that price range out of the park, so Android users just can’t say any negative things about it.
Apple also received other superlatives listed below:
- Best Design Award for iPhone Air
- Most Improved for iPhone 17
- Bust of the Year for the iPhone 16e
The iPhone 17 is definitely the most improved model based on everything mentioned above. The iPhone Air features a breakthrough ultra-thin design that integrates most of the components in the camera plateau to allow enough space for a high-density battery. Sadly, despite earlier claims that the iPhone 16e was not selling as well, it still appears to be one of the best-selling smartphones based on Counterpoint. Nonetheless, MKBHD’s 2025 Smartphone Awards video is still worth watching.
All in all, this has been a huge year for the iPhone lineup, and next year is expected to be even bigger with the launch of the iPhone 18 Pro models and the highly anticipated “iPhone Fold.”
