There’s no two ways about it, the iPhone Air is one of the more exciting Apple devices in recent memory. A nod to the first MacBook Air which revolutionized laptop design, the Air is Apple’s thinnest phone to date and we have one in our hands.
Let’s get the obvious out the way – it’s remarkably slender. But how thin is 5.6mm really? Well, take a look for yourselves.
In the photo above it is on top of the iPhone 17 Pro Max. The 3.2mm difference looks even more substantial in person. But the camera plateau (that’s Apple talk for camera bump) extends the phone’s total thickness to 11.3mm.
The Air feels great in hand, and it’s perfectly balanced. It’s remarkable that Apple managed to fit basically all of the iPhone Air’s key components in said camera plateau. Sadly, the single 48MP camera is a bit of a letdown, even if Apple claims it’s equivalent to having four lenses. Despite the slim design, you still get the dedicated Camera and Action buttons.
Our Sky Blue unit is a pretty dull shade and looks closer to white depending on the lighting. As for the unboxing experience, the Air comes in a slightly thinner box compared to the rest of the new phones. But just like them, the only accessory you get is a braided USB-C cable.
The 165-gram weight feels shockingly light for an iPhone, particularly when compared to the new batch. Still we’ve seen competitors reach mid-150-gram weight, so it’s not an entirely new experience. It’s also the only new iPhone with a titanium frame, which until last year was the premium material in Apple’s PR talk. The frame is really shiny and gives out a nod to the stainless-steel days of the iPhone 12 Pro, 13 Pro and 14 Pro generations.
Apple iPhone 17 Air
The 6.5-inch display feels like the perfect size between the more compact 6.3-inch iPhone 17 and 17 Pro, and the overly large 6.9-inch Pro Max. It’s an LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED panel with ProMotion, meaning a variable 1-120Hz refresh rate.
Despite the thin design, the Air gets an A19 Pro chip with 12GB RAM just like the 17 Pro models, although it’s a slightly less capable version. It will certainly be interesting to see how the Air performs under stress, given the obvious physical constraints and lack of a dedicated vapor chamber. And we’ll also make sure to test Apple’s “all-day battery life” claims in our full review.
