Should you buy the iPhone 17 Air? - Everything you need to know.

Now Apple has never skimped out on its display tech and the iPhone 17 Air comes equipped with the best. It comes with a substantially large 6.5-inch, 2736 x 1260px resolution, OLED display, display that is sure to catch your eye. It features an anti-reflective coating like the one on the Samsung S25 Ultra, so you can actually see what you're looking at when you are at the beach without holding your hand over the screen like a sun visor. Besides it has a peak brightness of 3000 nits making visibility a no-brainer. Plus, your photos and videos are going to look absolutely stunning.

Its anti-scratch protective armour is a their all new Ceramic Shield 2 which Apple claims is 3 times more scratch resistant than their previous Ceramic Shield, so your Britney Spears "Oops I did it again" phone drop moments might just result in a thud and a deep breath instead of a trip to the Apple Store for a screen replacement.

Now, for the slightly more technical part. This is a 120Hz LTPO (Low Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide) display. What does that mouthful mean? Apple's proprietary ProMotion technology allows the system to dial down the refresh rate to 1Hz and save battery when you're just reading a piece of content that is static such as an email. But the moment you start scrolling or playing a game, it zips up to a super-smooth 120Hz seamlessly. The result? Everything feels buttery, and your battery doesn't die before lunch.

Here's the showstopper: the iPhone 17 Air is a ridiculously thin 5.64mm at its slimmest point. To put that in perspective, the 16 Pro is a chunky 8.25mm—that's 33% thicker!

Holding the Air is like holding a wafer-thin mint, but, you know, a phone, and if you have mitts the size of a bear's paw well good luck.

However this incredible feat of engineering was achieved by making some compromises. The most notable? A single camera and a single speaker earpiece. This means the sound might be a little "tinny" compared to the dual bottom speakers on the Pro models.

The chassis is made out of 80% Recycled Grade 5 Spacecraft Titanium as mentioned by Apple in their keynote. This allows the phone to be extremely light bend resistant and durable, making it a pretty good everyday phone. Apart from its Titanium + Glass build it also comes certified with an IP68 Water Resistance rating. Because life happens, and you need a phone that can handle everything from a clumsy pool accident to a little underwater photography. For those who need a little extra reassurance, you can slap on a GRABIT G-CASE Anti Yellowing Clear case and call it a day. As far as colors are concerned they come in four stunning colours in a polished Titanium finish - Space Black, Cloud White, Sky Blue and Light Gold.

The 16 core neural engine accelerates machine learning and AI tasks by performing them quickly, with lower power consumption and efficiency instead of using the CPU or GPU alone which would take up a lot of power. Thanks to the 35 Trillion operations per second plus bandwidth it enables fast on-device processing for features that range from handling Cinematic Mode's focus shifts, stabilizing video in Action mode, powering Live Text and Visual Lookup, isolating voices on calls, to graphics based tasks like enabling ray tracing, and generating frames for smoother gameplay. It's also key for battery efficiency and accessibility features. Apart from all this it helps with Face ID, Siri Voice Recognition, Computational Photography, and newer Apple intelligence features such as Live Captions and image creation.

iOS 26 as apple calls it now in order to unify naming conventions among the platform, has a host of new features and improved interfaces. Among them the new Liquid Glass UI stands out considering it has a glassy, translucent look, and icons "float" with specular highlights. It's like the icons are trapped under a layer of water, and as you swipe across them, they catch the light in real time thanks to the neural engine. It’s a simple yet ingenious little touch that makes the whole experience feel more premium and futuristic.

Even with a single camera, the iPhone 17 Air is still a contender. It has a massive 48MP “Fusion” cam on a "pillow" camera bump.

The "Fusion" part is key—it's a software-driven technology. This standalone shooter isn’t just about pretty design—it also delivers 2× optical-quality zoom, providing sharper close-ups without the need for multiple lenses.

Though it skips the ultra-wide and macro lenses found on its Pro counterparts, the Air retains powerful imaging muscle. The Fusion sensor combines high resolution with digital cropping to ensure detail-rich shots, even from a single lens. Its architecture appears to be optimized for the thinnest hardware possible. On balance, the iPhone 17 Air's rear camera delivers sharp, high-resolution photos in a stunningly compact package—perfect for those who favor elegance and everyday functionality.

However, this means your selfies will be sharper, your video calls will be clearer, and Face ID will work better in challenging lighting conditions thanks to the larger square shaped image sensor.

Traditionally Front camera sensors come in a 4:3 ratio that limits framing based on the orientation of the phone, but the iPhone 17 series all new larger square shaped sensor is a game changer that allows you to take pictures in any orientation in up to 4 different compositions while not compromising image details and quality. This means you don't have to rotate your phone to take a landscape selfie anymore. With the power of AI it also automatically adjusts the camera's orientation and field of view based on the number of people who join your selfie to accommodate everyone in one frame.

Centerstage also plays a major role in improving the new video feature of Apple called Dual capture. Dual Capture’s concept is an old technology that first appeared on the LG Wing back in 2020 and 21. In this you can record video on both the front and the rear camera while your video will be shown on your display in a window in window interface. Center Stage keeps your front facing video stabilized in real-time while shooting in dual capture mode all thanks to the Neural Engine of the A19 pro chip, meaning you can focus on the action that you are recording on your real camera while centre stage keeps you focused on the front camera.

Apple is taking a bold step and using its own custom-built Modem for cellular, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. This is Apple's way of saying "we're doing it ourselves now, thanks," and it means they can fine-tune the wireless performance to a level that other manufacturers can only dream of. The first, the N1 chip, is Apple’s all-new internal wireless networking solution replacing Broadcom components. It brings Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and the smart home protocol Thread under one umbrella, significantly boosting performance and reliability for features such as AirDrop, Personal Hotspot, and smart home connectivity.

Complementing the N1 is the C1X 5G modem, the successor to Apple’s initial C1 modem from the iPhone 16e. The C1X offers twice the speed of its predecessor, while delivering impressive 30% greater power efficiency—a critical enhancement for devices like the iPhone Air where battery life and thinness are paramount. However, much like its predecessor, it omits support for mmWave 5G, prioritizing efficiency over ultra-high-frequency coverage.

These additions reinforce Apple’s commitment to vertically integrated hardware, expanding beyond its renowned A-series processors to create a more seamless and energy-efficient ecosystem—beginning with critical connectivity components. It’s also ESim only in the US, so if you're a jet-setter, you can finally ditch those tiny little pieces of plastic.