Ryan Haines / Android Authority
Have you seen Apple’s new iPhone 17 Pro design? Don’t you love it? After all, it’s the first thing you see when you open the phone’s product page to learn more about its latest flagship. There it is, in all its heat-forged aluminum glory — sorry, titanium, but your time has passed. Apple touts this new design as being its most powerful yet, so there must be some magic to this aluminum shell.
And honestly, I think it looks pretty good. I like the bold colors, the seamlessness of the unibody shell, and I’ll admit the camera plateau is growing on me. There’s just one problem: Scratchgate. The new iPhone 17 series is picking up scratches like no other, forcing me to consider a break from my no-case lifestyle to keep my phone presentable.
Then again, there’s another solution — to buy a different phone.
Do you really want to cover up Apple’s sleek new design?
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
We, of course, could have this debate about any phone — and I kind of do. I’m both dedicated to my no-case lifestyle and review dozens of phones every year, so buying a case each time is not practical. After all, some of the cheaper phones in my collection will only get a week or two of use before they head off into a drawer, and then I don’t mind that I’m not seeing them.
However, I’ve never had to consider so seriously whether my day-to-day lifestyle would damage the back of my phone. Usually, I’ll pick up a phone, admire its frosted glass back and glossy frame, and slip it right into my pocket without a second thought — and yes, that’s the Pixel 10 Pro XL I’m talking about. So far, I’ve never had an issue with that approach, having only ever broken two phones, and neither was in my pocket at the time.
I feel like that meme — choosing between a button marked 'ugly case' and a button marked 'scratches.'
The problem is that the iPhone 17 Pro doesn’t have a largely glass design — this beast is almost entirely aluminum. Normally, you might think this is good news, as aluminum doesn’t shatter like glass does. In reality, you have to remember that this is a swap away from titanium to a slightly softer metal with much sharper edges around its camera plateau — and there’s much more of it.
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