iPhone 17/Pro/Air Unboxing: 1 Hot Take!

Summary

MKBHD unboxes the entire iPhone 17 lineup including the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and the new ultra-thin iPhone Air. He shares first impressions on the new colors (green for base, orange and blue for Pro), discusses benchmark improvements with the A19/A19 Pro chips, and dives deep into battery capacity revelations. The video’s “hot take” is that the base iPhone 17 is potentially the best deal in smartphones right now, offering better value than competitors like the Pixel. He also compares the iPhone Air to Samsung’s S25 Edge, noting that while the Air is thinner, the S25 Edge offers more features like better cameras and stereo speakers.

Highlights

”Potentially the Best Deal in the Lineup”

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“This base iPhone, I really am thinking is potentially the best deal they’ve had in the lineup in a long time.” — Marques Brownlee, 1:23

”I Can’t Believe Apple’s Battery Claims”

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“This adds definitely more fuel to the I don’t really know if I can believe anything Apple says about battery… They rate the Air for 27 hours and they rate last year’s iPhone 16 for 22.” — Marques Brownlee, 7:21

”4.5 Hours Screen Time is C Minus Level”

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“It’s been trending towards around 4 and 1/2 hours of screen on time per day, which used to be good, but these days that’s like C minus level.” — Marques Brownlee, 8:09

”One of the Best Deals in All of Smartphones”

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“The base iPhone this year is more clearly than ever the one that most people should get… I think this is one of the best deals in all of smartphones.” — Marques Brownlee, 10:37

Key Points

• 0:00 - Unboxing Overview: MKBHD introduces all four iPhone 17 models: Pro Max (2TB/$2000), Pro (blue), base iPhone 17 (green), and iPhone Air
• 1:09 - Base iPhone 17: Potentially the best deal in Apple’s lineup; features satin finish, green color, USB-C braided cable, no stickers included
• 2:05 - Pro Colors: Orange is controversial (two-tone, not pumpkin colored); blue is closest to black; no black option for Pro phones this year
• 3:21 - iPhone Air Unboxing: Named “iPhone Air” (not “iPhone 17 Air”); third thinnest phone MKBHD has ever seen
• 4:37 - Air Battery Pack: 3,149 mAh external battery designed specifically for iPhone Air; fits under camera bump
• 5:47 - Benchmarks: A19 and A19 Pro show nice improvements in multi-core CPU and GPU; Pro phones now have 12GB RAM (up from 8GB)
• 6:12 - Battery Capacities: Base iPhone 17 less than 5% bigger; Pro Max cracks 5,000 mAh; smaller Pro sees ~20% increase; Air has 3,149 mAh (same as iPhone 13 Pro)
• 7:21 - Apple Battery Claims: Skepticism about Apple’s battery ratings - Air rated for 27 hours vs iPhone 16’s 22 hours despite smaller battery
• 8:00 - Air Battery Reality: Getting ~4.5 hours screen-on time, described as “C minus level”
• 8:19 - Air Design: Titanium rails, glossy finish, picks up fingerprints; feels like jewelry with iOS 26’s liquid glass elements
• 9:00 - iPhone Air vs S25 Edge: Comparison of ultra-thin phones - S25 Edge has better cameras, ultrawide, stereo speakers, and larger 3,900 mAh battery
• 10:30 - Hot Take: Base iPhone 17 is one of the best deals in smartphones - better than base Pixel with better camera, more powerful chip, 256GB base storage, 120Hz display, and $100 cheaper
• 11:28 - Upcoming Reviews: iPhone Air won the Twitter poll for most anticipated review; mentions $2,000 2TB Pro Max pricing

Mentions

Companies

• 0:30 - Apple - Manufacturer of iPhone 17 series, hosts hands-on events at Apple Park
• 5:29 - Ridge - Mentioned as potential third-party power bank maker
• 8:53 - Samsung - Maker of Galaxy Tab Ultra and S25 Edge competitor phone
• 10:57 - Google - Maker of Pixel phones, compared unfavorably to iPhone 17 value
• 12:05 - Dbrand - Channel sponsor, maker of ghost case and tank case

Products

• 0:37 - iPhone 17 Pro Max - 2TB model at $2,000
• 0:47 - iPhone 17 Pro - New blue color option
• 0:53 - iPhone 17 - Base model in green
• 3:24 - iPhone Air - New ultra-thin model
• 4:14 - Moto Z - Referenced as slightly thinner phone
• 4:47 - Air Battery - Apple’s external battery for iPhone Air
• 5:55 - A19 / A19 Pro - New Apple chips with improved performance
• 8:07 - Spotify Lossless - Audio service mentioned during battery testing
• 8:42 - iOS 26 - New iOS version with “liquid glass” design elements
• 9:03 - Galaxy S25 Edge - Samsung’s ultra-thin competitor
• 9:28 - Snapdragon 8 Elite - Chip in S25 Edge
• 12:11 - Apple Clear Case - Compared to Dbrand ghost case
• 12:24 - Dbrand Tank Case - Rugged matte black case option
• 13:02 - MagSafe - Magnetic charging technology

People

• Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) - Video creator and tech reviewer

Media/Shows

• 10:45 - Waveform Podcast - MKBHD’s podcast where he shared the hot take earlier

Surprising Quotes

“This base iPhone, I really am thinking is potentially the best deal they’ve had in the lineup in a long time.” — 1:23

“Apple’s not giving it to us for the Pro phones this year” (referring to black color option) — 2:42

“This adds definitely more fuel to the I don’t really know if I can believe anything Apple says about battery” — 7:21

“4 and 1/2 hours of screen on time per day, which used to be good, but these days that’s like C minus level” — 8:09

“The base iPhone this year is more clearly than ever the one that most people should get” — 10:37

“This is one of the best deals in all of smartphones” — 10:51

Full Transcript

0:00 All right. So, by the time you watch this, I will be several days into my iPhone 17 series testing. So, definitely get subscribed to see the full reviews right when they come out. They’re in the works. Uh, but I always like to do each year a bit of an unboxing and like a second look at the new phones outside of the very chaotic environment that is the hands-on area at Apple Park. and answer some FAQs and do some benchmarks and get some photo samples in and just get familiar with these phones. So, that’s what we’re gonna do.

0:37 I’ve got the iPhone 17 Pro Max. This is actually the two terabyte, the $2,000 most expensive iPhone you can buy this year, a 17 Pro in the new blue color. So, I got the two new colors. Uh the green 17 and they put the phone sideways for the Air because it’s the thin one. It’s also the thinnest box. And I also have that Air battery that uh is a bit of a red flag, but we’re going to look at it anyway.

1:05 So, let’s start with the base one, the iPhone 17. The experiences with these phones, unboxing them is typically the same from year to year. Uh but I do like to just check just to make sure. This base iPhone, I really am thinking is potentially the best deal they’ve had in the lineup in a long time. Uh, this green color. I actually kind of really like the green. You get this like glossy with the camera bump. And then the actual phone is satin even though it’s not a pro phone. So, I’m loving that.

1:39 You do get that USBC cable braided in the box. And then you get some paperwork. You don’t get any stickers with iPhones. You know, that’s that’s the days of the past. But you still do get your uh you don’t need a SIM card tray and uh a little bit of instructions, but that’s basically it. There’s nothing else that comes with these phones anymore. It’s extremely minimal.

2:03 Let’s do the pros. The pros should be pretty similar, but I do want to look at these colors in my own lighting environment. I think the orange has proved to be the most controversial new color. I I’ve only seen takes of people either hating on it or loving it. I think I kind of like it, but I also kind of liken it to like a bright shirt. You know, it looks good on me in the moment, but I might not want to wear it every single day. You know, like the most popular car color is probably silver or black for a reason. Uh people want a black or a neutral color for their phone, too. But Apple’s not giving it to us for the Pro phones this year.

2:46 So, you have this really bright two-tone orange. I I thought it was going to be more pumpkin colored from all those leaks, but it is definitely not. It is fully orange. And then you’ve got this blue, which is is maybe the one I’m going to have to go with because it’s the closest to black. A lot of people like the silver, and that’s cool. Uh, I just can’t I I record a lot of videos of things with screens and windows like cars and it’s just too bright in the reflections. So, I have to use a dark colored phone. Probably going to end up debranding a blue pro phone.

3:18 So, all right, that leaves the uh the new one, the ultra thin one, which is the iPhone Air. Notably, not the iPhone 17 Air, it’s the iPhone Air. Uh, at least that’s the way they said in the keynote, which is interesting because people are speculating that they may not refresh it every single year, which I guess logically could make sense, but I kind of think they’re going to do a new one every year.

3:42 But this is the thinnest box. They show it sideways on the box. Let’s see what it actually looks like. It’s face up. Jeez. Every time you hold it. Okay, so this is the light blue, and that is again just so ridiculously thin. Uh I think this is the third thinnest phone I’ve ever seen. I think there was the Moto Z, which was a few ten of a millimeter thinner, and then there’s this one other phone I think was like 4 mm or something crazy that I never held. This is absolutely ridiculous uh to see and hold in person.

4:27 And let’s see if the packaging is any different. USBC cable like we expected. And yeah, paperwork’s the same. Nothing special in the airbox other than your ultra thin phone.

4:39 And yeah, this is the battery. So the battery, like we saw in the keynote, was launched alongside the phone. And it’s designed for iPhone Air. And this is what it looks like here. this all-white battery. Uh, I checked on the back 3,149 milliamp hours, which by itself like this, that’s the size of a normal small phone’s battery. Uh, and then it pops on the back of the phone just like that. So, when I say designed for the Air, it’s perfectly fitting underneath the camera bump. And you could use it on the other phones, but it’s not designed for them. So, like it wouldn’t really fit or magnetize in the right place. you’d have to, I don’t know, use it sideways or something, which is probably not what you actually want to do.

5:26 So, yeah, definitely made for this phone. There’s nothing stopping other people like Ridge from making really good power banks that fit on any of the phones, but yeah, they launched these things together. And so, uh, yeah, I will be testing battery life thoroughly to figure out exactly what we’re working with here.

5:46 But that’s the boxes. Nothing too shocking here, but there are plenty more first impressions to get to. So, I’d like to get benchmarks out of the way in these early impressions videos. So, here’s the results from the new A19 and A19 Pro versus last generation. They take some pretty nice steps up again, especially in multi-core CPU and GPU. And there’s also more RAM in these Pro phones now. It turns out last year it was 8 gigs across the board. This year, the Pros get 12.

6:11 But while we’re on numbers, this is one of those big things that’s come out since the keynote. Uh battery size capacities. Apple doesn’t advertise them, but you can find them. So, check this out. On the base iPhone, it’s less interesting. These phones are nearly the same dimensions, and the batteries inside are also almost the same size, less than 5% bigger.

6:30 The Pro phones are more interesting, though, because they’ve reworked the insides again. And these phones are also literally thicker than last year. And they’re really feeling like the most maximalist iPhones yet. And that has translated into the battery department because the Pro Max has cracked 5,000 mAh for the first time. And the smaller sized Pro phone sees the biggest improvement. Nearly a 20% larger battery year-over-year in iPhone land. That’s kind of a lot. It’s worth paying attention to.

6:57 And then maybe the most interesting phone, the Air. So, okay, it has a 3,149 millah battery. It is the smallest of the bunch as expected, but okay, 3100 milliamp is maybe slightly more than we expected once you see and feel how thin this phone really is. It’s about the same size as the battery from the 13 Pro.

7:21 What I will say is this this adds definitely more fuel to the I don’t really know if I can believe anything Apple says about battery fire for me because uh on the the website to compare all devices if you look at batteries they rate the Air for more battery than last year’s 16. They rate this for 27 hours and they rate last year’s iPhone 16 for 22. To me that just means the Pro chip that’s in here is more efficient for video playback. great. Uh, but real world use is more varied and there’s way more going on with it.

7:51 So, I guess all that to say, I will be paying a lot of attention to the battery life of this phone as I use it. It has so far been acceptable, but not great. I would say I had one really bad day early, but it was still downloading all my shiny new Spotify lossless audio. So, you kind of can’t really count that. And since then, it’s been trending towards around 4 and 1/2 hours of screen on time per day, which used to be good, but these days that’s like C minus level. I’m glad it’s not Fle, but stay tuned for my full review to get the verdict on that.

8:19 But the Air really has been the most interesting iPhone in the lineup to test by far. It’s the only one that’s sticking with this titanium for the rails, which are very glossy and very quickly get covered in fingerprints. Uh, and I don’t know if you can tell on camera, but this is also the blue one. You wouldn’t know it just from the footage, but this it is in fact slightly blue. But I just feel like with the liquid glass elements of iOS 26 and the shiny rails, it kind of feels almost like a piece of jewelry, if that makes sense. It’s just it’s pretty stunning to hold. It’s nice to look at, and it reminds me of the Galaxy Tab Ultra series with just how impressive it is that something this thin can have such a good-look display on the front of it.

8:59 Matter of fact, speaking of Samsung, this is their ultra thin phone, the S25 Edge. And so now that they both exist, we can actually compare these two incredible pioneers of thinness, as I know so many people on social media will. Who did thin better?

9:16 Now, I will say they do have a lot of similarities in their approaches to getting this thin. Both actually use the flagship chip from their lineups, or at least close to it. The iPhone Air does drop a GPU core from the A19 Pro, but the S25 Edge uses the full-on Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. Both also certainly sacrifice long-term cooling of this flagship chip by leaving out the vapor chamber from their bigger flagship brothers.

9:38 But also, the S25 Edge has a full flagship main camera. The iPhone Air does not. The S25 Edge also has an ultrawide alongside it. The iPhone Air does not. S25 Edge still has stereo speakers. iPhone Air does not. There’s no speaker at the bottom at all. That’s just microphones. An S25 Edge has the smallest battery of the lineup, but it’s still 3900 mAh, which is close to the base phone. iPhone Air has the smallest battery in the lineup by a bigger margin. But the iPhone Air is thinner.

10:08 I personally lean S25 Edge just a bit just cuz on the surface level, I prefer I like cameras, so I prefer having a better camera system. And I think I like this boxier design a little bit better. But there’s no question in my mind this is the most interesting iPhone of this lineup because of the thin thing and it will get a lot of people checking it out in stores and when they hold a friends and and when they just see it in public just cuz it looks that stunning.

10:33 But I actually think that’s a distraction because the base iPhone this year is more clearly than ever the one that most people should get. And this is a maybe that’s a hotter take that I I dropped a little bit earlier on the Waveform podcast, so you might have heard this already if you listen there, but I think this is one of the best deals in all of smartphones.

10:54 Like, think about this. You’ve you’ve seen in the past few years, the base Pixel has been a pretty good deal right now. The base iPhone 17, it has one less camera, but it’s an arguably better primary and ultrawide camera. It’s a much more powerful chip. the new better selfie cameras in there. And it also now starts at 256 gigs. It’s at 120 Hz now. And so it is $100 cheaper than the equivalent Pixel. And you know, I don’t even think people are necessarily crossopping these two phones, but just as far as how much phone you get for your money, they’ve done a much better job finally in the base iPhone.

11:27 But either way, let me know what you want to see in the full reviews. I asked on Twitter which one of the phones you guys are most interested in, and iPhone Air 1. Not a shocker. That’ll probably be the first review. But then the Air and the Pro. There’s a lot to talk about the vapor chambers, the cooling, the camera, the new selfie cameras, and just which ones are good deals at which prices and also new pricing because there’s a $2,000 two TBTE iPhone Pro Max.

11:54 But leave a comment down below. I’ll check those out. And be sure to get subscribed to see those reviews when they first come out. And if you are actively planning on getting a 17 series iPhone, then you probably also want some protection for it. In which case, channel sponsor Dbrand has some options like this ghost case. they sent over, which you can see side by side with Apple’s clear case. Uh, no comment. I’ll just let you be the judge.

12:18 Also, look how good a black pro iPhone could have looked this year if they made one, but they didn’t. But thankfully, Dbrand has it covered with their new tank case, which in addition to being matte black, is also totally overkill. It’s this super rugged case that’s obviously going to be really protective, but also just from the looks of it, probably pretty divisive. Some of you will love it, some of you will hate it. Again, I’ll let you be the judge. If nothing else, though, it’s definitely matte black.

12:41 And of course, because it’s Dbrand, they put a ton of Easter eggs all over this case and used a bunch of different textures to make it feel super grippy. And bonus, the buttons are customizable cuz you can just pop them out and swap them with colored replacements to add a little personal touch, or just leave them black, which is probably how I’d go.

12:55 They’ve also both got super strong magnets. That’s something I’ve noticed about Dbrand’s cases is they’ve stepped up the Mag Safe game with their own magnet strength lately. So, I’ll leave a link to the tank case and the ghost case down below if you want to check them out, whichever one you want. Thanks for watching. Catch you very soon in the next one.