Today, information regarding the body components of Apple’s iPhone 17 Air has been leaked. To make the device significantly lighter, the iPhone 17 Air will not feature titanium alloy or stainless steel; instead, it will use 7000 series aluminum alloy.
To achieve an even lighter overall device, the Apple team has made efforts to reduce the weight of each component. Here’s the breakdown:
- 7000 series aluminum frame: Approximately 25-30 grams, lighter than the titanium used in Pro models.
- OLED screen: Approximately 35 grams, specially optimized for an ultra-thin design. Apple executives reportedly demanded an even smaller display size than initially planned to avoid a repeat of the iPhone 6 Plus bending incident.
- Single 48-megapixel main camera: Approximately 5-7 grams.
- A19 chip and logic board: Approximately 10-12 grams, with reduced volume thanks to the 3nm process.
- MagSafe module and other electronic components: Approximately 10-12 grams, enabling features like wireless charging.
- Glass back panel: Approximately 15 grams, lighter than current models.
- Silicon-carbon battery: Approximately 35 grams, lighter than traditional lithium batteries due to advanced technology and removal of adhesives.
The entire iPhone 17 Air device will weigh approximately 146 grams. To put this number into perspective, here are the weights of a few other iPhone models for comparison:
- iPhone 6: 130 grams
- iPhone 13 mini: 140 grams
- iPhone 16: Approximately 170 grams
This means the iPhone 17 Air will be close in weight to the iPhone 13 mini, yet it will boast a 6.6-inch screen. This intuitive contrast might give the device a very unique feel in hand.
The leaker compared an iPhone 17 Air dummy unit with the iPhone 16 Plus. The physical buttons on both models remain consistent, but the difference in thickness is quite noticeable. The iPhone 17 Air has a body thickness of only 5.5mm, appearing significantly lighter compared to the iPhone 16 Plus’s 7.8mm.
In terms of display, the iPhone 17 Air features a 6.6-inch OLED screen, which is very close to the iPhone 16 Plus’s 6.7-inch display. However, the iPhone 17 Air will upgrade to support a 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate and an Always-On Display feature.
Additionally, Apple has reportedly removed the bottom speaker and physical SIM card slot from the iPhone 17 Air. This implies that the external audio quality of this model might be relatively weaker. For the battery, the iPhone 17 Air’s capacity is estimated to be 2800mAh, which is 40% less than the iPhone 16 Plus’s 4674mAh! Although Apple is introducing silicon-carbon technology for the first time, boosting energy density by 15-20%, the battery life of this model might not be very good. Leaker Majin Bu estimates battery life to be 6-7 hours under heavy use, and approximately 3-4 hours under extreme load.
Regarding core performance, the iPhone 17 Air will be powered by the A19 chip and will be upgraded to 12GB RAM. It will also feature Apple’s self-developed C1 baseband, the same as in the iPhone 16e, which is expected to significantly reduce power consumption.