Apple yesterday unveiled the iPhone 17 Air, its thinnest smartphone ever, with a thickness of just 5.6 mm. The titanium-framed Air has nearly all hardware to the camera bar, leaving more space for a battery inside the ultra-slim casing.
The iPhone 17 Air flaunts a 6.5-inch AMOLED display, with ProMotion support and a refresh rate ranging from 1 to 120 Hz. The device comes with a peak brightness of 3000 nits, with HDR content delivering up to 1600 nits. Apple says that the screen is protected by scratch-resistant ceramic-coated glass.
Under the hood, Apple is using a scaled-down version of its new A19 Pro chip. It runs with two performance cores, four efficiency cores, a five-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine, keeping performance close to the Pro models while balancing the Air’s compact build.
While Samsung still chose to include a dual-camera at the back on its version of slim phone, Apple has gone with a single 48-megapixel main camera. It comes with f/1.6 aperture, optical stabilization, and Apple’s Fusion system that mimics 2x optical zoom.
The front camera includes an 18-megapixel square sensor designed to keep framing consistent, no matter in which orientation you want to take selfies.
Apple claims up to 27 hours of video playback on the iPhone 17 Air, which if true, is nice, but still slightly behind what iPhone 17 offers. In terms of charging, the iPhone 17 Air supports a maximum charging speed of 30W via USB-C and 25W with MagSafe. The phone also ships with Apple’s first in-house 5G modem, plus Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, NFC, and dual eSIM support.
The iPhone 17 Air comes in Sky Blue, Light Gold, Cloud White, and Space Black color options. Pricing in the US starts at $1,199 for 256 GB base model, rising to $1,449 for 512 GB, and $1,699 for the 1 TB option. Pre-orders begin September 12, with sales starting September 19.
