The Apple iPhone 17 Pro is packed with features, while the iPhone 17 Air is packed with style. People who want “the best” iPhone will need to decide what that really means to them. Do you want the best camera and battery life or do you want the flashiest design? I picked the features over style, but that won’t be the right choice for everyone. Here’s the breakdown between the different iPhones and some questions to answer to help you decide.

Breaking down the iPhone 17 Pro vs. iPhone Air debate

The thing that makes the choice between these two phones so confusing is that the iPhone Air is kinda Pro. Its screen has the same ProMotion 120Hz features and slots in, size-wise, right between the 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max. It also gets the A19 Pro chipset (minus one GPU core) for top performance potential. Sure, the Air doesn’t support USB 3 transfer speeds when moving photos to a computer with a cable, but that’s become a niche use.

In reality, the two main areas where the Air and Pro diverge are the battery and camera.

Battery

  • Air: 27 hours of video playback

  • 17 Pro: 33 hours of video playback

Camera

  • Air: 48MP Fusion Main camera

  • 17 Pro: 48MP Fusion Main camera, 48MP Fusion Ultra Wide camera, 48MP Fusion Telephoto camera (8x optical quality)

For me, the better performance in those two areas was enough to pick the Pro. But if you’re still on the fence, here are some practical questions to ask yourself that might help sway you one way or another.

  • How often do you find yourself searching for a charger throughout the day?

  • Do you regularly use a MagSafe power bank on your phone?

  • Do you ever use Low Power mode?

If those things aren’t a concern, then battery life might not be a factor for you.

  • Do you need an ultra-wide perspective while taking pictures to see whole rooms or spaces? (Hello, real estate agents)

  • Do you regularly zoom in more than 2x?

  • Do you take spatial photos?

Those are some of the practical things that only having a single camera might get in the way of.

The iPhone 17 and the iPhone Air are worth comparing too

Although the iPhone Air is tempting for people who want the best or newest phone from Apple, the thin device is probably closer to the regular iPhone 17.

The 17 and Air both have the same ProMotion display. They both have the same USB 2 charging port. There are just fewer areas where they diverge from each other.

  • For battery life, the 17 gets 30 hours of video playback, while the Air gets 27 hours.

  • In terms of cameras, the 17 has the second ultra-wide camera for handling 0.5x shots. But neither of these devices has more optical quality zoom than 2x.

The iPhone 17 starts at $799 for 256GB of storage, while the iPhone Air starts at $999 for 256GB. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with going with your cut and picking the Air. But if you don’t need the thinness, the 17 might save you $200.