iPhone Air, in ten facts: 5.6 mm thin, one camera, one speaker, no SIM slot — what Apple gave up to make its thinnest phone

At Tuesday night’s “Awe dropping” event Tim Cook announced four phones — iPhone 17, 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max and the one everybody wanted to hold, the iPhone Air. Apple calls it the thinnest iPhone it has ever made. Thinness is a trade, and this is what was traded.

1. 5.6 millimetres, 165 grams. The thinnest iPhone since the 6.9 mm iPhone 6 of 2014, and lighter than any recent Pro model.
2. 27 hours of video playback. Apple’s figure. The rest of the iPhone 17 line manages up to 30; the Air has the smallest battery in the family, which is the first cost of the design.
3. Titanium and Ceramic Shield. The iPhone 6 became famous for “bendgate”. Apple has answered with a titanium frame and Ceramic Shield glass on both faces, and early hands-on reports describe a phone that feels rigid rather than fragile.
4. Everything lives in the “plateau”. The main board, cameras and most components sit in the raised bar across the top of the back, leaving the rest of the body to the battery. It is why the phone can be thin — and why there was no room for more cameras.
5. One rear camera, 48 MP. No ultra-wide, no telephoto. Apple’s computational 2× crop from the 48 MP sensor is the only zoom. For most people’s photographs it is enough; for anyone who uses the wide lens for group shots, it is the deal-breaker.
6. An 18 MP square front camera with Center Stage. The square sensor means landscape selfies without turning the phone, and the frame automatically widens when more people step in.
7. One speaker. Every other expensive phone has stereo; the Air has a single speaker. Fine for calls and videos, thinner sound for music.
8. A19 Pro chip, with one fewer graphics core. The same processor as the 17 Pro but five GPU cores instead of six. In daily use nobody will notice; in sustained gaming the Pro will pull ahead, partly because it has more room to shed heat.
9. eSIM only, worldwide. The first iPhone sold everywhere without a physical SIM slot. In Bangladesh that matters: all major operators now issue eSIMs, but switching numbers, using a second local SIM abroad or handing the phone to a relative all become an operator visit or an app process rather than a tray swap.
10. Apple’s own C1X modem, and slower charging. Apple says the C1X is twice as fast as last year’s C1 and uses 30 per cent less power than the Qualcomm modem in the Pros. Charging tops out at 20 W — 50 per cent in 30 minutes, against 20 minutes on the 40 W-capable Pros — and the USB-C port runs at USB 2 speeds, not the Pro’s 10 Gbps USB 3.

Should you buy it?

The Air is a design object first and a flagship second. If you want the best camera, battery or speaker Apple sells, it is the wrong phone; the 17 Pro is right there. If you want the phone people notice, and you can live with one lens, it is the most interesting hardware Apple has shipped in years. In Dhaka’s grey market it will arrive within weeks at a premium, and the eSIM question is the one to settle with your operator before paying it.

Source: India Today, via Prothom Alo.