My husband is a true gadget enthusiast. He is already on his second folding smartphone, a Galaxy Z Flip 7, after starting with a Motorola Razr when they first came out. I am more of a “convince me” kind of gadget lover. If I see a compelling reason to get excited, I am all in. Otherwise, I stick with what I have until I have a real reason to upgrade. I still remember when Apple introduced Touch ID to end password fatigue; I bought one immediately.
I have been in the Apple ecosystem for more than a decade because my work computer is a Mac, and having my phone and Watch all work together is both practical and helpful. That is the definition of the Apple moat, but I would not consider myself a fangirl. For the record, my personal computer, the one I bought myself for non-job-related uses, is an HP Spectre running Windows, and I love it.
I am still using an iPhone 13. As much as I like how my husband’s phone fits so nicely in a pocket, I prefer practicality over novelty. But my phone’s battery and touchscreen are aging, and it does not have a chip powerful enough to run the promised Apple Intelligence AI future. So it is time for an upgrade.
Today, I was within a heartbeat of preparing to preorder the new iPhone Air. It looked like the best of all worlds to me: a bigger screen yet small enough to fit in my hand, the best chip, and only two hundred dollars more than a 17, but still cheaper than a Pro. I have never been a Pro user. I do not film Hollywood-esque movies and have no social media-creator hobbies, so I have always opted for the better price.
But as I dove into the specifications, the iPhone 17 started to look like a better deal. In the Air’s favor, it has a 6.5-inch screen compared to the 17’s 6.3-inch, yet it is lighter to hold. It also has the A19 Pro chip rather than the A19 chip. Oddly, this is not the same Pro chip that is in the Pro phone. It has a 6-core CPU with a 5-core GPU, which is similar to the A19 in the 17. The Pro model has a 6-core CPU and 6-core GPU.
The 17 beats the Air on battery life, too, promising 30 hours of video playtime versus the Air’s 27 hours, according to Apple. And while another ninety-nine dollars will buy a battery pack for the Air, bringing battery life up to 40 hours, that pack defeats the purpose of a lighter, thinner phone.
The Air is using a new and interesting computational photography camera, meaning camera features are powered by software. This allows a single lens to act like multiple lenses, including a delightful new feature that allows simultaneous front and rear camera shots. That is good for filming reactions to the world and would be fun to own. But the Air lacks the 48-megapixel Fusion Ultra Wide lens the 17 has. The Air’s storage options are far better, up to 1TB, but for a price. The 1TB option costs fourteen hundred dollars, which makes it only one hundred dollars less than a 1TB storage Pro at fifteen hundred dollars.
All in all, as much as I want to love the larger-screen, lighter Air, if I were to treat myself and get a higher-end phone, I would just go ahead and buy a Pro. If the Air becomes Apple’s folding phone, as some suspect, I may ditch my 17 for a stunning folding iPhone at that point. Until then, for regular users like me, the 17 still seems like a better deal.