Which iPhone Should You Buy in 2026? Pro, Plain, or Last Year's

The iPhone is the one Apple product people buy on autopilot, which is exactly why so many of them buy the wrong one. The classic mistake is reaching for the Pro because it has the best camera, then aiming that camera mostly at parking spots, restaurant menus and the dog — while the genuinely smarter buy, last year’s Pro or this year’s base model, sits ignored for the crime of not having “Pro” in its name. The phone you should buy is not the most capable one Apple makes. It’s the cheapest one that does the two or three things you personally do every day.

And there are really only two things that separate these phones in a way you’ll feel: the camera system, and the screen. Get honest about how much you care about either, and the four-way choice between base, Plus, Pro and last year’s model collapses into something obvious.

The lineup, decided in two questions

Before the detail, here’s the whole decision. The base iPhone is the right phone for most people. The Plus exists for one reason — a bigger screen and a bigger battery. The Pro and Pro Max are for people whose hobby or job is on the other side of the lens. And last year’s model is the quiet value play that beats all of them on price for losing almost nothing you’d notice.

The base iPhone is the right answer more often than people admit

The plain iPhone — this year the iPhone 17 — is the phone I’d hand most people without a second thought. It has the same main processor family as the Pro within a generation, the same gorgeous OLED screen at a normal size, a genuinely excellent main and ultrawide camera, all-day battery, the Action button, USB-C, and years of software updates ahead of it. For texting, calls, maps, banking, social apps, photos of your life and the occasional bit of video, it does everything the thousand-pound phone does and you’d struggle to feel the difference in a blind test.

What you give up is specific and, for most people, irrelevant. You don’t get the telephoto lens for long optical zoom. You don’t get the Pro’s high-refresh, always-on display. You don’t get the heavier-duty video tools — ProRAW, ProRes, the log formats editors care about. If none of that sentence made your heart beat faster, the base iPhone is your phone and you can stop reading the Pro reviews that were never written for you.

The Plus: a bigger phone, not a better one

The iPhone Plus solves exactly one problem, and it solves it well: you want a large screen and the longest battery in the non-Pro range, but you don’t want to pay the Pro tax for cameras you won’t use. That’s a perfectly good reason to buy one. People who watch a lot of video on their phone, who have older eyes, or who simply like a big slab in the hand get real value here.

Just be clear with yourself that the Plus is the base phone made larger, not the base phone made better. The cameras and the screen tech are the standard ones, in a bigger body, with more battery to feed the bigger screen. If “I want the big one but I’m not a camera person” describes you, the Plus is the honest pick and you’ve sidestepped a few hundred quid of Pro features.

The Pro and Pro Max: buy them for the camera, or don’t buy them

The iPhone Pro and Pro Max are wonderful, and they’re sold to a lot of people who’d be just as happy with two hundred quid still in their pocket. You step up to a Pro for a short list of real reasons, and you should be able to name at least one before you pay.

The headline is the camera. The Pro adds a dedicated telephoto for proper optical zoom, stronger low-light performance, and the serious video and RAW tools that matter if you actually edit your photos or shoot video as more than a hobby. Then there’s the screen: the Pro’s ProMotion display is smooth and adaptive and stays dimly lit as an always-on clock, and once you’ve lived with high refresh, a standard screen feels very slightly like a slideshow. You also get nicer materials and build, and on the Pro Max, the biggest screen and the longest battery Apple puts in a phone, full stop.

If you photograph your kids’ sport from the sideline, shoot video you care about, or just want the best screen and battery going and have decided the money is fine — buy the Pro, and buy the Max if size and battery trump pocketability for you. If you’re buying it because it’s the “best” one and you’d never use a single Pro feature, you’re paying a premium for bragging rights. There’s no shame in the base phone; there’s only the camera you’ll actually use.

Last year’s model: the smartest line in the catalogue

Here’s the buy almost nobody leads with. The moment a new iPhone lands, last year’s model — the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro as I write this — drops in price while losing essentially nothing you’ll feel in daily use. A one-year-old Pro is still a phenomenal camera. A one-year-old base iPhone is still fast, still on USB-C, still getting years of updates. Apple keeps selling the previous base model new at a lower price, and the Refurbished store and trade-in routes make the previous Pro a steal for the patient.

The only time I’d talk you out of last year’s phone is if a specific new feature is the entire reason you’re upgrading. Otherwise, buying one generation back is the closest thing to a cheat code in the Apple world: the same experience, minus the early-adopter tax.

	Base iPhone	iPhone Plus	Pro / Pro Max	Last year’s
Roughly	around $799	around $899	around $999 to $1199	around $599 to $799
Best for	Most people	Big screen, big battery	Camera and video people	Value hunters
Telephoto zoom	No	No	Yes	Pro models only
ProMotion screen	No	No	Yes	Pro models only
Battery	All day	Among the best	Best on Pro Max	Still strong
Honest verdict	Buy with confidence	Buy if you want size	Buy if you’ll use it	Buy to save real money

How to actually pay less

Three routes worth your time. Trade-in is the obvious one — even a cracked old phone knocks a useful sum off, and it’s built into checkout. Carrier and education deals turn up around back-to-school and the autumn launch, and they’re real money if you’re eligible. And the Refurbished store plus last-generation pricing, as above, gets you a near-current phone with full warranty for a genuine discount. What I’d avoid is stretching to a Pro Max on a long instalment plan to feel premium for a fortnight — the monthly number is small, the total is not, and the base phone you’d have been delighted with is sitting right there.

A word on storage, since the store will gently push you up the tiers: most people are fine on the middle option. Your photos and videos can live in iCloud, and the only folks who truly need the top storage tier are heavy ProRes video shooters and offline-everything hoarders. Don’t pay for a terabyte to store a phone’s worth of holiday snaps.

The one-sentence version

If you remember one thing: the camera is the only feature most people upgrade for, so if you don’t care about the camera, you don’t need the Pro. Start at the base iPhone, step to the Plus only if you want it bigger, and climb to a Pro only when you can name the lens or the video tool that’s pulling you there. And before you pay full price for this year’s anything, look hard at last year’s model — it’s the same phone with the new-launch premium quietly removed, and your wallet will feel the difference long after the box is in the recycling.