For several months, the iPhone 17 Air has been the most anticipated model in the upcoming iPhone lineup that Apple will debut next week. Apple had underwhelming sales for its fourth flagship iPhone model starting with the iPhone 12/13 mini. Even when Apple replaced the “mini” model in favor of the “Plus” model in the iPhone 14/15/16 lineup, that model also did not sell particularly well compared to the rest of the lineup. With the upcoming iPhone 17 Air, Apple is set to replace the “Plus” model with this model, and this time, it’s expected Apple’s thinnest iPhone ever.
Although Apple is expected to position the “Air” model between the base iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro models, it has remained unclear what the starting price for this “Air” model would be. Previous rumors indicated that we could see a $50 price jump across all models in the iPhone 17 lineup; however, it seems that rumors have changed a bit. For this iPhone 17 Air, TrendForce claims that this smartphone could start at $1,099, but with 256GB of storage. For comparison, the iPhone 16 Plus, the model that the iPhone 17 Air will allegedly replace, starts at $899 with 128GB of storage. For an apples to apples comparison, that model with 256GB of storage will set you back $999, and pricing for the iPhone 16 Plus includes a $30 connectivity discount that requires carrier activation (according to Apple’s footnote). Both the iPhone 16 Pro Max and the M4 iPad Pro have started with 256GB of storage, and the smaller iPhone 17 Pro is expected to follow suit as well (with an allegedly higher starting price).
Here are the list of prices for the iPhone 17 Air that TrendForce expects:
- 256GB – $1,099
- 512GB – $1,299
- 1TB – $1,499
So for just at least $100 more, you would get all all-new form factor with its ultra-thin design, but at the same time, you would have to deal with its compromises such as the single rear camera, a single speaker in the earpiece, a slightly smaller display, and potentially a bit shorter battery life.
On the other hand, the base iPhone 17 is expected to still start at $799 with 128GB of storage by default along with the A19 chip with 8GB of memory. However, both the iPhone 17 Pro models will see higher starting price points, but those will come with higher default storage and memory configurations at 256GB and 12GB, respectively, thanks to the A19 Pro chip. The Pro models will have one additional GPU core additionally.
We’ll see the official specs for the entire iPhone 17 lineup once Apple unveils its latest flagship smartphones.
