As neither the Mini nor Plus-branded iPhones managed to sell brilliantly, Apple is reportedly now working on its thinnest iPhone yet as the difficult fourth handset.
This ultra-thin smartphone has been dubbed the iPhone 17 Slim as a placeholder name, but could well end up being the iPhone Air to tie in with Apple’s line of trend-setting skinny MacBooks and iPads.
It’s early days for the phone, so there aren’t too many rumors to go on just yet. Nonetheless, here’s what we know about the iPhone 17 Slim so far — and a few things on our wishlist too.
iPhone 17 Slim: Expected price and release date
iPhone release dates are pretty easy to predict, giving every numbered Apple smartphone in the last decade has come out in September (barring the iPhone 12 , which had an October unveiling, thanks to Coronavirus). As such, it’s a strong bet that the iPhone 17 Slim will emerge in September 2025, unless it’s pushed back to 2026 or killed off completely.
Price is more difficult to gauge. Although it’s rumored to be replacing the ‘Plus’ model of iPhones, it’s wishful thinking to hope that it’ll come in at the $899 starting point of the iPhone 15 Plus .
Apparently, we could be looking at a handset that costs more than the Pro Max — which currently starts at $1,199. This would leave the regular iPhone 17 by far the cheapest option in the absence of a Mini or Plus models.
iPhone 17 Slim: Design and screen
As the name suggests, the most notable thing about the iPhone 17 Slim is likely to be how skinny it will be. We don’t have an actual measurement on that yet, but given its aluminum chassis is predicted to be “ significantly thinner ” we’re talking about a device that presumably greatly undercuts the iPhone 15’s 7.8mm depth.
Indeed, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman believes it’s set to be in “a new class of Apple devices that should be the thinnest and lightest products in the whole tech industry.” So perhaps the target will be something to eclipse even the 2024 iPad Air (6.1mm) or even the 2024 iPad Pro (5.3mm).
This thin frame will reportedly support a 6.6-inch OLED display, which is only slightly smaller than the iPhone 15 Plus’ 6.7-inch panel. Apparently it might have other premium features to make it stand out too, such as a smaller hole and pill-shaped cutout for Dynamic Island.
One interesting quirk: the cameras could be relocated to the top center of the device, rather than in the top left as in past years.
Specs-wise, it’s likely that the iPhone 17 Slim will sit somewhere between the vanilla iPhone 17 and the more powerful Pro models. To that end, it will likely be powered by Apple’s upcoming 3nm A19 chipset with a Pro-matching 8GB RAM — 2GB more than the current iPhone 15.
The OLED panel will reportedly support the 120Hz ProMotion tech that Apple has previously reserved for its Pro handsets, too.
So far, so Pro, but one way it will apparently be closer to a regular iPhone is in the camera array. The analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes the phone will only sport a single 48MP rear lens , rather than the usual two-to-three snappers, which may be one of the ways Apple aims to keep the handset trim.
iPhone 17 Slim: What we want to see
It generally sounds rather promising, but there are some things that we want to ensure aren’t sacrificed on the altar of impossible thinness…
Solid battery life
The worry about a super-thin design is that battery capacity will inevitably suffer. iPhones don’t tend to have the longest phone battery around, but recent models have been solid enough with the iPhone 15 family lasting between 10hrs 53mins and 13 hrs 14 mins in our stress tests .
Even with a more efficient chipset, it feels like some loss is inevitable, but as long as it doesn’t dip below the eight-hour mark, that wouldn’t be catastrophic. If we are looking at less than that, then Apple had better be planning to embrace charging speeds faster than the 40W promised with the iPhone 16 Pro .
Decent photography
As mentioned above, the iPhone 17 Slim is tipped to have a single 48MP camera.
That’s inevitably going to be less flexible than the three lenses that come with the iPhone 15 Pro Max , but doesn’t necessarily mean it will be bad. Early Google Pixel handsets were among the best camera phones you could buy, even with a single lens, proving that onboard image processing goes a long way.
We’re hoping that the iPhone 17 Slim can offer similarly solid photos in both well-lit and low-light conditions, even if it’s unlikely to be the photographer’s choice when upgrade time rolls around.
Plenty of storage
If the iPhone 17 Slim is as expensive as the early rumors suggest, then Apple really had best not be planning to scrimp on the onboard storage.
The cheapest iPhone 15 Pro Max still ships with 256GB of storage, and that simply won’t cut it if this really is set to be the most expensive handset Apple has ever released.
Of course, if a theoretical iPhone 17 Slim does start with 512GB of storage at an astronomically high price point, then people might ask why a cheaper 256GB version isn’t available. So perhaps this isn’t too likely, after all.
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