Summary
- The iPhone Air is super-thin at 5.6mm with Ceramic Shield, 6.5-inch 120Hz display and A19 Pro power.
- The phone features a single f/1.6 48-megapixel camera with 2x zoom (I’m skeptical the thin design justifies camera trade-offs).
- Apple claims that desipite how thin it is, the iPhone Air offers “all-day” battery life.
During its fall keynote, in addition to the expected iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro updates Apple finally revealed the iPhone Air, an ultra-thin smartphone the tech giant has been rumored to be working on for several years.
The svelte smartphone measures just 0.22-inches (5.6mm) thick and features Ceramic Shield glass on the front and back, which Apple says makes it “more durable” than any previous iPhone, despite its thin design. To put this in perspective, the 0.27-inches (6.9mm) iPhone 6 was Apple’s thinnest iPhone, with later models getting a bit thicker to accommodate bigger batteries, Face ID, multiple camera lenses, and other features.
- Brand
-
Apple
- SoC
-
A19 Pro 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU
- Display
-
6.5-inch 2736 x 1260 pixel resolution Super Retina XDR display
- RAM
-
N/A
- Storage
-
256GB
- Ports
-
USB-C (supports USB 2)
The super thin iPhone Air is just 5.6mm thick and features a single 48-megapixel camera lens. Its display comes in at 6.5-inches with supports for ProMotion 120Hz, and its front and back features ceramic shield construction.
The iPhone Air aims to offer high-end features in a sleek package
But will the phone be close to as capable as the iPhone 17 Pro? It’s still unclear
Other key iPhone 17 Air features include a Pixel-like camera bump spanning its front that houses its single f/1.6 48-megapixel camera with 2x telephoto zoom, a 6.5-inch 120Hz ProMotion display, and Apple’s new A19 chip. According to Tim Millet, the tech giant’s vice president of platform architecture, the iPhone Air’s six-core A19 Pro CPU is the fastest smartphone chip available right now (I’ll definitely need to test this claim). The iPhone 17 Air also features Apple’s new N1 chip and an upgraded GPU.
I’m not sold on the thin smartphone trend, but even I have to admit that the iPhone Air looks pretty cool.
Regarding battery life (a key concern surrounding the iPhone Air), Apple says that the smartphone is capable of “all-day” usage. This is a lofty claim that definitely needs to be put to the test, especially since Samsung’s 5.8mm Galaxy S25 Edge featured pretty average battery life (to be fair, it wasn’t as bad as I expected). Other features include Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, Thread connectivity, and support for eSIMs (the US version of the phone doesn’t feature a physical SIM card slot).
I’m not sold on the thin smartphone trend, but even I have to admit that the iPhone Air looks pretty cool. It will be very interesting to see how thin it actually feels when I get my hands on it. On the other hand, I’m not sure the camera performance and battery life trade-offs are worth the slightly sleeker design. It’s also worth noting that the iPhone Air replaces the iPhone Plus in Apple’s smartphone lineup.
The iPhone Air starts at $999 USD/$1,449 CAD for the 256GB base version. Pre-orders launch on Friday, September 9th at 8am with the smartphone launching on September 12. At its “Awe dropping” event, Apple also revealed the iPhone 17 line, its AirPods Pro 4, the Apple Watch Series 11, and more. Pocket-lint will have more on the iPhone Air in the coming days.
