Following a slightly confusing turn of events, we saw a report from last week claiming to showcase the iPhone 17 Air’s battery, which later turned out to be the cell for the iPhone 17 Pro. We now have actual images of the iPhone 17 Air battery thanks to a post on Korean blog Naver. The images showcase a similar-looking L-shaped battery encased in a steel sheet like the iPhone 17 Pro’s battery.
iPhone 17 Air battery compared to iPhone 17 Pro’s battery
As per the new report, iPhone 17 Air’s battery is just 2.49mm thick, including the metal casing. That’s about three credit cards stacked on top of each other. As we can see in the second image, the 17 Air’s battery is noticeably thinner compared to the 17 Pro’s. This will be needed as Apple’s thinnest phone to date is allegedly just 5.5 mm thick.
A thin device like that will naturally feature less battery capacity than what we’re used to. As per the latest rumors, the 17 Air’s cell packs around 2,900 mAh of charge – a far cry from the iPhone 16 Plus (which the 17 Air is replacing) and its 4,674mAh cell.
iPhone 17 Air (bottom) compared to iPhone 16 Plus (top)
The iPhone 13 mini from 2021 was the last iPhone to feature a sub-3,000mAh battery, and that device powered a 5.4-inch screen, whereas the 17 Air is rumored to bring a 6.9-inch display. It remains to be seen if Apple will employ a silicon-carbon (Si/C) battery to help boost the 17 Air’s endurance.
Source (in Korean)