When Apple launched its iPhone 17 range last week, it included something pretty revolutionary. The iPhone Air is the brand's first take on the new trend of slim phones, with a striking 5.64mm depth rating.
It's not alone, either. Earlier this year, Samsung debuted its Galaxy S25 Edge, which sported a similarly impressive 5.8mm thickness. The world of foldable phones does something similar, with unfolded devices routinely breaking the 5mm barrier these days.
But all isn't quite as it seems. In a recent thread on Reddit, one user overlaid a selection of different iPhone models, to illustrate how the difference in thickness looks in the real world.
That consisted of the new iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro models, as well as classics like the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 6. And while the Air may have the others pipped across most of its frame, the camera bump is a different story.
There, all of the benefits of the slimmer chassis melt away, resulting in a similar thickness to that of the much larger Pro model. The older devices – while obviously part of a different generation and utilising a different design – sit much flatter and true to their rated thickness.
Even the iPhone 6 – which debuted with a camera bump – looks pocket-friendly in comparison. And that's really my biggest issue with the drive for slim phones.
I totally get the desire to fit more tech in a compact space. It's fresh, new and innovative, and feels like a logical next step after years of perfecting the ingredients which make up the internal hardware.
But in electing to promote only the slimmest section of a device – while conveniently leaving out less sleek areas – feels disingenuous. I hope that brands continue to reduce the size of these components, and we can actually get a true slim design in the near future. But what we've currently got, I fear, simply isn't delivering on that promise.
