Most of us probably swap out our old ones for new ones every few years. No I’m not talking about spouses! Get your head out of the gutter and I’m sorry your stepmom is 5 years younger than you 🥴. New phones are always being plopped in front of us, teasing us with their screen sizes and camera lenses and chip powers. What you bought last year is already outdated and even though I love my Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra (I’ve had it for a few months now), I’m sure something faster and sleeker will come along soon. The same goes for iPhones, too. Your iPhone 17 will be old by this time next year… oops, the 17 max pro double plus just dropped. Heyo.
But seriously, the 17 is fresh on the market and I’m sure it’s a good smartphone. But as far as hardware– and as the kids say, aesthetics– goes, there are a couple of things about it that I can’t bear to look at. Here’s the phone…
Looks fine, right? Multiple cameras. Standard rectangular shape. That raised plateau (where the camera lenses are) everyone is doing now. I don’t love that trend but there’s something else even worse. See if you can pick up what bothers me by watching this ad for another sneaky cool phone, the Xiaomi 17 Pro.
Did you catch it? It’s why I’ll never look at the iPhone 17 the same way again. Instead of a boring and bare plateau on the back, Xiaomi made the entire area a viewing screen. How do you like them apples, Apple??
All I can ever think now is why WOULDN’T there be a screen there? And then I look at the iPhone 17 again and it just looks like an imitation of the Xiaomi instead of the other way around. But there’s still something else… a visual part of the phone that irritates me so much. It’s this:
I cannot stand the flash and LiDAR scanner sensor on the right side of the phone. Why is there so much separation between those two features and from there, so much empty space towards the 3 camera lenses? It reminds me of the back of the Hyundai Santa Fe. Cool ride from the front but the back is hideous… it’s like the Pontiac Aztek was resurrected from the car cemetery to haunt us again. This part of the iPhone 17 is such a frustrating design choice. But even if it looked more cohesive or they grouped everything together like previous iPhone designs, the Xiaomi integration of a screen still wins and it’s not even up for debate. I mean, unless you want to comment below and we can chat on why the iPhone 17s are boring, Xiaomi 17s are not, and why the S25s beat them all.
-Out of the Wilderness
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Out of the Wilderness 