Why are the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro so expensive?

Looks can be deceiving 

The Cupertino giant has positioned the iPhone Air as a slender device with pro performance. At 5.6mm, this is the thinnest device to date. The phone flaunts the same A19 Pro chip as the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, though the latter models have a 6-core GPU, and the Air comes with a 5-core graphics chip.

There's a camera plateau on the back that houses the 48MP camera, the A19 Pro chipset and the speaker. This frees up space for the battery, which Apple says will last a day. You'd be right to question that claim, considering this is the only model that gets the MagSafe Battery that attaches to the back to quickly juice it up.

The phone has a 6.5-inch screen with a refresh rate of 120Hz, bigger than that of the standard iPhone 17, which comes with a 6.3-inch display. 

The base model has a dual 48MP camera system and is fueled by the slightly less powerful A19 chip.

Now, here's the kicker. There is a $200 price difference between the two devices. The iPhone 17 starts at $799, while the base Air model costs $999.

The iPhone 17 Pro also costs more than the iPhone 16 Pro, though it must be noted that it starts with more storage. This means that the entry point into the Pro models is now $1,099.

The Pro models also come with a camera bar and now have aluminum instead of titanium sides. The handsets are the first iPhones to feature a vapor chamber to ensure higher performance levels. The camera setup now consists entirely of 48MP sensors.

I don't think the iPhone Air offers enough to justify the $999 starting price. Sure, it looks marvellous and is 2.4mm thinner and 12 grams lighter than the iPhone 17, but a $200 surcharge is excessive for that difference.

The phone has just one camera, and its battery needs a crutch. Of course, it's lighter!

Yes, it does pack the A19 Pro chip, but there usually isn't a huge performance difference between standard and Pro versions of Apple's smartphone chipsets. Besides, it's not the same chip as the one in the iPhone 17 Pro.

More importantly, this phone has titanium sides and doesn't even have the Pro models' vapor chamber. This doesn't bode well for sustained performance.

The $100 price hike on the iPhone 17 Pro makes even less sense. The only real update this year is the bigger and higher-resolution 48MP camera with 8x optical zoom. The aluminum design seems more like an admission, or should I say apology, for going with titanium for the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro, which made them run hotter.

The new camera plateau doesn't stand out as much on the Pros, likely because the cameras are still aligned in the familiar triangular arrangement.

What's a Pro now?

By the looks of it, the Pro models have been elevated to an even higher level, while the Air is being presented as the new Pro model for those who don't want to or can't splurge on the new Pro anymore. Classic Apple.

There's even a 2TB model now, which costs an exorbitant $1,999.

Apple has reestablished the price hierarchy, and knowing how the company can sometimes be a bad influence on Android manufacturers, I fear the iPhone 17 series will change the smartphone industry for the worse, just like the iPhone X did.

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