With the iPhone 17 lineup, Apple has discontinued the Plus model in favor of the new iPhone Air. But how do these models compare to each other?
Physical size and thinness
Of course, the most immediate and striking difference between… iPhone Air and iPhone 16 Plus The difference is in the design. iPhone Air Noticeably thinner and lighter:
- – Its thickness is 5.64 mm, down from 7.80 mm
- 165 g (5.82 oz), down from 199 g (7.03 oz)
iPhone Air It is also shorter and narrower than iPhone 16 Plus:
- 6.15 inches (156.2 mm) high, down from 6.33 inches (160.9 mm)
- 2.94 inches (74.7 mm) wide, down from 3.06 inches (77.8 mm)
The camera plateau on the back is now full width, by contrast iPhone 16 Plus. Although it is shorter.
Simpler colours
Part of the new design is a new palette of colors. Compared to the iPhone 16 Plus, the iPhone Air’s colors are much simpler. iPhone Air Come Sky Blue, Light Gold, Cloud White, and Space BlackWhile the iPhone 16 Plus came in Ultramarine, Teal, Pink, White, and Black.
iPhone Air It has the same features as the Super Retina XDR display found on iPhone 17 Pro, including ProMotion! This offers some great new features compared to the iPhone 16 Plus:
- Adaptive refresh rate, from 1 Hz to 120 Hz. This will result in a smoother display and better battery life.
- Always-on display: Now, when iPhone Air is in sleep mode, the display can still display the time, widgets, and notifications.
However, the screen is slightly smaller, at 6.55 inches compared to 6.69 inches. Specifically, the decisions are:
- iPhone Air: 2736 x 1260 at 460 ppi
- iPhone 16 Plus: 2796 x 1290 at 460 ppi
iPhone Air It also comes with Ceramic Shield 2, which introduces some new features:
Finally, all new iPhone models this year feature a maximum screen brightness of 3,000 nits when outdoors, up from 2,000 nits last year. Combined with Apple’s new anti-reflective coating He says This will provide 2x better contrast when you are outside.
A19 chip
It will give the A19 Pro chip iPhone Air Better performance than iPhone 16 Plus with A18 chip. The new features are largely focused on increasing AI capabilities: new neural accelerators will significantly improve the performance of machine learning and AI tasks. Apple says it will deliver “MacBook Pro levels” of power. Also, things like games will be improved, like Apple He says The A19 Pro’s GPU features up to “3x the peak GPU compute over the previous generation.”
The iPhone Air features 12GB of RAM, compared to 8GB in the iPhone 16 Plus. The A19 Pro also features increased memory bandwidth, though Apple didn’t specify how much.
Battery life and charging
According to Apple tests. iPhone Air It will offer almost the same battery performance iPhone 16 Plus (in certain scenarios):
- Up to 27 hours of video playback (when downloaded), same as iPhone 16 Plus
- Up to 22 hours of streaming video playback, up from 24 hours
Apple is also offering a special offer MagSafe battery accessory. These are the results when using it:
- Up to 40 hours of video playback (downloaded), up from 27 hours
- Up to 35 hours of streaming video playback, up from 24 hours
iPhone Air It also offers slightly faster charging, so you can now get up to 50% charge in 30 minutes instead of 35 minutes when using 20 watt transformer or higher.
There is no ultra-wide camera
In order to make the iPhone Air so thin, some compromises had to be made. One such problem is the lack of an ultra-wide camera. However, it has the same great 48MP Fusion Wide camera from the rest of the iPhone 17 lineup! “Fusion” here means you can get full-resolution 12MP images with 2x zoom, rather than relying on low-quality digital zoom. Although this camera is not really new compared to the iPhone 16 Plus, it has improved processing. You can also keep the same great photos in Portrait mode, including the ability to take a portrait of any subject. However, you lose the cinematic mode for video recording.
Brand new Center Stage front camera
One of the key features of the new iPhone range is the all-new Center Stage front camera. This camera now uses a square image sensor, which means you can switch between portraits and landscape photos without having to rotate the phone. The sensor is now also 18MP, so your photos will always be high-resolution.
The square sensor and higher resolution enable Center Stage on iPhone for the first time. As on the iPad, this means the camera will automatically adjust the frame to keep you visible during a FaceTime or other video call. But Center Stage also works when taking selfies: the camera will automatically adjust the frame and switch between portrait and landscape mode depending on the person in the frame. When recording a video, it will also be super stable, similar to the action mode found on the rear camera.
Finally, a new dual capture mode lets you record video on both the front and rear cameras at the same time.
Mono speakers
One of the other things Apple had to do was remove the bottom speaker. That means it iPhone Air It is limited to mono audio, and the maximum volume is not that high. If the speakers on your phone are of high value to you, this is definitely something you should consider.
New N1 wireless networking chip
with iPhone AirApple has introduced its first in-house wireless chip. In addition to improving the overall wireless performance and reliability of features that rely on this chip (such as Personal Hotspot and AirDrop), this new chip iPhone Air It now has Bluetooth 6 instead of 5.3.
iPhone Air It now also has dual-frequency precision GPS for more accurate and reliable GPS functionality, and adds support for NavIC in India.
New C1X cellular modem designed by Apple
iPhone Air It is the first iPhone to get Apple’s new C1X modem, which is an improvement on the C1 modem from the iPhone 16e. The C1 actually delivered faster and better performance than existing Qualcomm and Apple modems He says The C1X is up to 2x faster than the C1, all while using 30% less power than previous Qualcomm modems.
However, there is one drawback: the C1X doesn’t support mmWave 5G, so you’re limited to sub-6GHz speeds.
Pricing and availability
iPhone Air It starts at $999 with 256GB of storage, which is the same price iPhone 16 Plus With 256 GB storage space. However, there’s no $899 128GB option as there was with the 16 Plus. You can get 512GB for $1,199, which is the same price as the 512GB iPhone 16 Plus. Finally, there’s now also a 1TB option for $1,399.
iPhone Air Available to buy online and in stores now.
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