00:04If you're in the market for a new iPhone and have a decent amount of money to spend,
00:07you're probably deciding between two very different products, the iPhone 17 Pro and the
00:11iPhone Air. The former is a feature-packed powerhouse with excellent cameras, while the
00:15latter is among the most interesting iPhones design-wise that Apple has ever made. So which
00:19should you buy? I've used both the 17 Pro and the iPhone Air for several months now,
00:23so in this video, I'll walk you through each model's strengths and weaknesses to help you
00:26decide which iPhone best suits your needs. And as always, you'll find links to the latest
00:2917 Pro and iPhone Air deals in the description box below.
00:35Obviously, the biggest differences between the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air come in the design
00:39department. The 17 Pro is smaller, thicker, heavier, and has a much larger camera block or camera plateau
00:44that runs vertically across the width of its rear panel. Both this camera block and the phone's
00:48frame are made of aluminium, and the iPhone 17 Pro also has a glass cutout on the back for magsafe
00:52and wireless charging. The 17 Pro does actually look very different to the 16 Pro before it,
00:56and it feels great to hold in the hand. In any other year, it would be the standout iPhone
00:59in terms of design, but the iPhone Air is just another level of premium. Firstly,
01:03it's improbably thin. Measuring just 5.64mm at its thinnest point, the iPhone Air is 31% smaller
01:08than the iPhone 17 Pro and some 41g lighter, despite boasting a larger 6.5-inch display,
01:14which we'll come onto later. Like on the 17 Pro, Apple houses all of the Air's core components in
01:18the rear camera plateau, though here that module is pill-shaped and made entirely of glass.
01:22Glass is also the material of choice for the whole rear panel, and the iPhone Air is housed in a
01:26titanium frame rather than an aluminium one. In the hand, Apple's super slim iPhone feels like
01:30nothing else before it, and if you don't think you'll care about the Air's thickness, you will,
01:34you'll definitely appreciate its weightlessness. I've had to double-check my pockets at times just
01:37to remind myself that the Air is in fact where I left it. And when you do take the phone
01:40out of
01:40your pocket, it'll definitely attract more attention than the Pro, which again, looks great,
01:44but it's a different type of great. What's more, despite the Air's thin and lightweight design,
01:47Apple still makes room for the action button and camera control, so you won't lose out on either
01:51feature by choosing not to go Pro. Both phones are also protected by Ceramic Shield 2, which is way
01:55more scratch-resistant than previous versions of iPhone Glass, and both get an IP68 rating,
02:00meaning they're water-resistant to depths of 6 metres for up to 30 minutes, and dustproof.
02:03As for the slightly more subtle design differences, the 17 Pro has stereo speakers at the bottom of
02:07its frame, while the iPhone Air has a single mono speaker in the earpiece area. The 17 Pro also
02:12ships with a SIM card tray in the UK, Europe and Australia, whereas the Air is eSIM only in every
02:16region. As for colours, the 17 Pro comes in silver, cosmic orange and deep blue, while the Air ships
02:21in sky blue, cloud white, space black and light gold. Though beware, the gold is not very gold.
02:28From the front, both the iPhone 17 Pro and the iPhone Air look nigh on identical,
02:32save for their different screen sizes. Like the regular iPhone 17, the 17 Pro uses a 6.3-inch
02:37OLED panel, while the Air uses a 6.5-inch OLED panel, which is a size that's unique among the
02:41iPhone 17 lineup. If you go for the 17 Pro Max, you'll get an even larger 6.9-inch display.
02:46Both of these screens boast 120Hz refresh rates and Apple's always-on display technology,
02:50as well as the dynamic island cutout for live alerts, background activities and app controls.
02:54Both the 17 Pro and iPhone Air also share an outdoor peak brightness of 3,000 nits,
02:58so you won't struggle to see either phone's screen in bright sunlight. In other words,
03:01this section is a straight tie, though personally, I think the iPhone Air's 6.5-inch screen size
03:05is the sweet spot for a smartphone display.
03:09Now we come to the first big compromise of the iPhone Air. It only has one camera.
03:13Apple's marketing will tell you that the Air's 48-megapixel fusion lens is both a wide-angle lens
03:18and a telephoto lens in one, but this 2x optical quality crop is no substitute for the true 4x
03:22telephoto zoom you'll get on the iPhone 17 Pro. Apple's latest flagship also offers optical
03:27quality zoom up to 8x, and you'll be thankful for their extra versatility when filming at concerts,
03:31sports games, or basically anywhere that has you far away from the subject.
03:34The 17 Pro also offers a 48-megapixel ultrawide lens, which makes it easy to capture landscapes,
03:38buildings, and small spaces, while again, the iPhone Air has no such lens.
03:42Lastly, the 17 Pro can capture video in 4K at up to 120fps, but the Air is limited to 4K
03:47at 60fps,
03:48so content creators will probably want to opt for the former device.
03:51On paper then, the 17 Pro wipes the floor with the Air in the camera department,
03:55and that's no surprise given that it's one of the best camera phones money can buy right now.
03:58However, it's worth thinking about what type of photos you regularly take before dismissing the
04:02Air out of hand. When swapping from the Pro to the Air, I was worried about how much I'd
04:05missed the former's telephoto lens, but actually, I found the wide lens to be perfectly fine in 80%
04:09of situations. The lack of a proper zoom lens did prove frustrating at times, but I didn't really
04:13notice the lack of an ultrawide lens, and the portability gained by having only one camera on
04:17the iPhone Air is worth bearing in mind. Both phones also share the same excellent 18-megapixel
04:22selfie camera, which uses subject tracking to automatically keep you in the frame, and lets
04:25you switch between portrait and landscape modes on the fly.
04:30The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air both use Apple's latest A19 Pro chipset, meaning they're two of the
04:35most powerful phones on the market. But there are some slight differences in terms of how they handle
04:39all that power. The chipset inside the 17 Pro actually has an extra GPU core, though you'll
04:43never notice the difference while strolling, screaming, or web browsing. Where the 17 Pro
04:46does pull away from the Air is in its management of heat. Apple's latest flagship features a dedicated
04:50vapor cooling system for better sustained performance, while the super slim Air features no such system.
04:55Again, you won't notice the benefits of this vapor chamber while scrolling through TikTok or
04:58watching YouTube, but it does keep the 17 Pro much cooler than the Air while gaming for sustained
05:02periods or recording video in 4K. The Air also has a tendency to heat up during extended FaceTime
05:07sessions or when downloading multiple apps in one go. Which isn't really a problem,
05:10but it's definitely a noticeable difference versus the 17 Pro. The Pro stereo speakers are also much
05:14better than the single mono speaker in the iPhone Air, and for data transfer, the Pro gets USB 3 speeds,
05:19while the Air is limited to USB 2. As for software, both phones offer an identical experience,
05:23supporting iOS 26 out of the box and likely remaining supported with updates until at least 2030.
05:31You won't be shocked to learn that the iPhone 17 Pro features a bigger battery than the super slim
05:35iPhone Air. Apple says you'll get up to 33 hours of video playback from the 17 Pro and up to
05:3927 hours
05:40from the Air, and both of those figures are accurate if you do nothing but stream video on either phone.
05:44Sustained web browsing over 5G will knock both of those numbers down significantly, and in our lab
05:48testing, where we used an app to cycle through websites until the phone's batteries are completely
05:51drained, the 17 Pro lasted for 15 hours and the iPhone Air lasted for just over 12 hours.
05:56In other words, the 17 Pro is a true all-day phone, you'll probably get nearer two days of use
05:59if you
06:00use it casually, whereas the iPhone Air needs to be charged every night. Again, that's not a deal breaker,
06:04I put my phone on charge every night as a matter of routine, but it's true that the 17 Pro
06:08has
06:08noticeably better battery life than the iPhone Air, so in a straight endurance shootout, Apple's
06:12flagship takes the crown. As for charging, the 17 Pro supports fast wired charging up to 40 watts
06:16and wireless charging up to 25 watts. The iPhone Air tops out at 20 watt charging regardless of the
06:21delivery method. That sounds like a dramatic difference, but in reality you'll be able to
06:24juice up the 17 Pro to 15% in around 20 minutes and the Air to the same figure in
06:28around 30 minutes.
06:29Neither phone supports reverse wireless charging.
06:34Overall then, the iPhone 17 Pro is the smarter buy on paper. It's got two more cameras than the Air,
06:39better thermal performance, longer battery life and faster charging. But you'll pay for those extra
06:43features via a higher price tag and it's worth remembering that the iPhone Air is on sale much
06:47more frequently than the Pro, so the price gap between the two phones will likely be more than
06:50the official difference. The iPhone Air meanwhile is the slimmer, smarter and much more eye-catching
06:55device with a display and main camera that match those of the iPhone 17 Pro. For me,
06:59those are the features I use most often on any phone and so my experience of using the 17 Pro
07:03and the Air has been largely comparable. The real difference is how the iPhone Air makes me,
07:07and maybe you, feel. It's a lovely piece of craftsmanship that gives me a pang of excitement
07:11every time I take it out of my pocket and that's not a feeling I felt about any iPhone for
07:15a long time.
07:15The iPhone 17 Pro is a truly exceptional phone and it's probably the device I'd be more
07:19comfortable recommending for most people. But choosing between these two iPhones is like choosing
07:23between the head and the heart. Which one do you trust more?
