If a vengeful witch ever turns me into a wild beast, enchants the objects in my house and grants them speech, I’m sure my phone will suggest going somewhere North. Way North. Somewhere, where it’s not as warm.
By now, Disney fans will have surely recognized my simple Beauty and the Beast allusion – in it, candelabras and clocks could talk. The only difference is that my phone won’t be as friendly as those animated characters.
The reason for that probably lies in the fact that I’m among the few who don’t (yet) enjoy an air conditioner. For many months of the year, it’s really hot.
But what if I owned the iPhone 17 Pro? Would it want to embark on a trip North by my side? Maybe. Or maybe not. Because it now deals with heat much easier than previous Apple flagships.
The iPhone 17 Pro models now have a vapor chamber under the hood. | Image by Apple
What makes the iPhone 17 Pro much different from earlier Apple flagships is that it handles heat better because of a new part under the hood. The iPhone 17 Pro (and 17 Pro Max, it goes without saying) takes advantage of a vapor chamber – the first of its kind.
And I’d say this hardware upgrade is really important. To some, it may be of a greater importance than the device’s new, upgraded telephoto camera or the refreshed design.
That’s a real advantage, one that is hard to ignore or downplay. Let me tell you a personal story.
In Singapore, my phone was on its lags legs multiple times
The Xiaomi 13 Ultra. | Image by PhoneArena
On a 2024 trip to sunny, humid, tasty, marvelous Singapore, I brought along two phones:
- Google Pixel 3a
- Xiaomi 13 Ultra
Guess which one of these was my main driver and which one was my sidekick.
I guess you guessed it… wrong!
The Xiaomi 13 Ultra was what I used for a camera and nothing more – it had no SIM card in it, so no mobile services were active. No Bluetooth, no Wi-Fi, just a 100% topped-up battery and a great camera.
The aged, but trusty Pixel 3a had my SIM card and an eSIM active, I used Wi-Fi whenever possible, I also kept Bluetooth on and whatnot. Overall, I used it non-stop for navigation and checking things on the Internet. Like where the most delicious seafood is (turns out, pretty much everywhere you can find amazing things to chew on).
However, my Pixel 3a didn’t quite enjoy this Singapore trip, since it was so hot both day and night; my frequent Internet activity didn’t help at all. I often had to use my Pixel 3a in the shadow of a building or a tree, because a couple of times, it got incredibly hot and just throttled.The Xiaomi 13 Ultra also got a bit hot, but only when shooting 4K videos for longer periods. It didn’t stutter at all, though.
And that’s great, but one can’t always bring two phones to an exotic trip. Especially if one has already paid top dollar for a flagship with a serious camera.
After all, you want your smartphone to be the all-in-one solution it was made to be. Nobody wants to look at the navigation map and take photos on two different devices.
That’s where the iPhone 17 Pro comes into play.
A serious Apple upgrade
Image by Apple
Thanks to its bold new design, many people consider the iPhone 17 Pro to be a hideous-looking device.
That may be so, you’re entitled to your own opinion, but the new design is introducing aluminum back. And when you have a vapor chamber AND an aluminum body, heat is becoming less and less of an issue.
My colleague Abdullah has laid it all out perfectly in his piece:
In short, the iPhone 17 Pro tackles overheating with a redesigned cooling system. Apple has replaced the old graphite sheets with the aforementioned vapor chamber to spread heat more effectively. It also ditched titanium in favor of aluminum, which conducts heat better and prevents buildup inside. The new design reduces glass on the back, leaving only a small panel for wireless charging, further boosting thermal efficiency.My point is: this is great news. Even if the iPhone 17 is getting criticized for the way it looks, or for how much it costs.
Yes, Apple is late to the party as Android flagships have been utilizing vapor chambers for years now, but I think the more time passes, the hotter (in the other meaning of the word) the iPhone 17 Pro is getting.
Getting hot and hotter
Image by Apple
I’ll probably gravely disappoint Greta Thunberg, but I’m not going to talk about climate change.
But if summers are indeed getting hotter and hotter with each passing year, it would be great to have a phone that deals with heat easier and has its own vapor chamber.
Especially when it comes to serious flagships with powerful chips, big batteries, large, bright screens and lots of connectivity and navigation capabilities: every little thing we do on our phones causes heat. And heat we must combat.
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