The iPhone 17 Air brings the biggest design change in recent memory, and goes all-in on the forgotten focus of slim and light phones. At 5.6mm, it’s the thinnest iPhone to date. Apple calls it “a paradox you have to hold to believe”.
It’s actually replacing the not-so-popular iPhone 16 Plus, so it gets a big 6.5-inch LTPO Super Retina OLED display with ProMotion 120Hz refresh rate. It also features the updated Ceramic Shield 2 protection and up to 3,000 nits brightness.
Reaching the slim and light design required some sacrifices, and the most obvious one is around the back, where Apple is putting just one 48MP camera. You also get an 18MP front-facing camera with Center Stage.
But Apple is not holding back on performance. iPhone Air is equipped with the all-new Apple A19 Pro chip. It features a 6-core CPU and a 5-core GPU. Apple claims iPhone Air is bringing MacBook Pro levels of performance.
But that’s not all, iPhone Air is debuting the Apple N1 chip, which brings Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0 connectivity. It is joined by the Apple C1X modem, which is 2x faster than the C1 modem and uses 30% less energy than the iPhone 16 Pro’s Qualcomm Snapdragon X71 modem.
While Apple doesn’t mention exact battery capacity, the iPhone Air will offer “all-day battery life”. Apple is bringing an optional low-profile MagSafe battery ($99), which will extend the Air’s total video playback to 40 hours.
iPhone Air comes in Space Black, Cloud White, Light Gold and Sky Blue colors.
It starts at $999 for the base 256GB storage version. Pre-orders are open on Friday, September 12, in the 63 first-wave countries, while deliveries are scheduled for September 19. The confirmed names on the list are Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Türkiye, the UAE, the UK, the US, and Vietnam. 22 more countries will get the Air a week later, on September 26.
