- The iPhone 17 Air might have an A19 Pro chipset
- But it could have one less GPU core than the iPhone 17 Pro
- It might also have a worse screen and battery
The rumored iPhone 17 Air is an intriguing handset, as it could be a big hit for Apple – or a colossal failure, depending on how well Apple balances its build with its specs, and on how much people take to a super-slim iPhone. The latest leak though suggests Apple might not have got the balance right for me.
According to Fixed Focus Digital – a leaker with a reasonable track record – posting on Weibo (via GSMArena), the iPhone 17 Air will have an A19 Pro chipset, just like the iPhone 17 Pro and the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Except, it won’t quite be the same here, as this source claims that the Air’s version will have five GPU cores, while the version used by the Pro phones will have six.
It remains to be seen how much difference that will make, but it would mean the iPhone 17 Air is less powerful than the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max – though still probably more powerful than the base iPhone 17, which will reportedly have a non-Pro version of the A19.
Battery, screen, and camera compromises
But this isn’t the Air’s only rumored compromise, as the same source also says that it will have a worse screen and battery than the iPhone 17 Pro.
They don’t get specific here as to the ways in which they’re worse, but presumably this means a lower battery capacity. As for the screen, that’s probably a reference to a previous claim they made that the base iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air wouldn’t have a variable refresh rate, and in turn therefore probably wouldn’t have an always-on display – though they will at least apparently have 120Hz screens.
So that’s quite a lot of compromises, and – coupled with the iPhone 17 Air probably just having one rear camera – this would almost certainly be too much of a compromise for me. Really, it seems only those who value aesthetics over everything else would choose to purchase the Air.
Yet there might be a lot of buyers like that, with Fixed Focus Digital predicting that the iPhone 17 Air will be a hit. So it will be interesting to see how well it actually does. We should find out in September, as that’s when the entire iPhone 17 series is expected to launch.
