Transcription
Today we have the thinnest smartphone Apple has ever made, the new iPhone Air. It's fair as the Air enters my lair that Tim Cook sayin a prayer. It's got to be a scare to arrive at my secretar where I've got no hair, though I do declare that I will be fair. Feel free to stare while we disregard welfare. I am aware that this is a phone's worst nightmare.
While the Air is kind of rare, I do have one spare. It's received much fanfare for its dramatic flare. It's time to see if it'll need repair or a grim repair. Pulling it out of the box, it is surprisingly light, and the mirror finished grade 5 titanium is surprisingly thin. Titanium is probably my favorite metal, and I am sad it's gone from the rest of the iPhone 17 lineup. It is cool, though, that it has the same polish around the edge that the original iPhone had 17 years ago.
For the Americans out there, the iPhone Air is as thin as one Oreo wafer, or three wooden toothpicks. It could also be half a Lego brick, the same size as three US quarters, or, you know, seven razor blades from my JerryRrig utility knife. I do have a buy a big knife, get a little knife free deal going on till the end of the month. Just throw them both in your shopping cart at the same time. But let's not get distracted. Ice cream lids are another standard form of measurement here in the USA. and the iPhone Air is clocking in at about a quarter of an ice cream lid. For the rest of the world, of course, the iPhone Air is 5.6 mm thin.
My worry though is that the button placement is going to compromise the integrity of the high strength aluminum. The buttons eat away a substantial portion of the titanium wall. And as anyone who's ever played Jenga would know, if you remove enough of the structure, things will eventually fail. But just like we've done with hundreds and hundreds of other phones over the past decade, let's start with the scratch test of the new Ceramic Shield 2, which is supposedly three times more scratch resistant. We'll see about that. Plastic usually scratches at a level two or three. Glass scratches at a five or six. And sapphire usually scratches at a level eight or nine. And as you can clearly see from my pics, the level six marks are basically non-existent. And we also barely see any scratches at a level seven. So I can't even say the thing I always say, Apple ruined it. The ceramic Shield 2 from Corning is definitely a massive improvement this year. However, glass is still glass. And even if the ceramic shield 2 is harder than before, glass will never be invincible.
Which is why I recommend a Prism screen protector from my channel sponsor DBR, which thanks to Dbrand's nationwide rollout at Best Buy today, I was able to instantly pick one up at my local Best Buy store. Dbrand is all grown up and playing with the big boys. So cool to see. Dbrand calls this an idiot proof screen protector. And while my mom would not approve of the name calling, the tagline definitely gets the point across. With a simple swipe, place, and peel, the screen protector is perfectly placed every time. Beautiful. Real glass is where it's at.
Apple says their new screens have an anti-reflective coating on the surface, but the anti-reflectiveness pales in comparison to my 2-year-old Galaxy S24 Ultra. You can count the individual dodes from my LED desk lights on the Samsung Glass, while the iPhone Air just shows a white rectangle. There's a clear winner. Better luck next time, I guess. The front-facing 18 megapixel selfie camera is also protected by the ceramic shield, too. It has a new square sensor inside, but we'll have to see what that looks like during the tear down. Subscribe so you don't miss it.
The reason titanium is my favorite metal is because it's significantly lighter and stronger than other metals. And it's biocompatible, meaning that all artificial joints and screws that go into human bones and bodies are usually made from titanium. And even more interestingly, when humans are cremated, the only thing left behind in the dust is their titanium hardware. And I'm sure it's unrelated, but the uh iPhone Air is made with 80% recycled titanium. Thumbs up for that. The sound of scratching titanium doesn't pierce quite as hard as scratched aluminum, but the exterior is still indeed scratchable. The buttons on the iPhone Air are not removable.
Making our way to the bottom of the air, the derrière, some might say. We see this slightly offcenter charging port surrounded by four extra holes. I imagine these are mesh covered microphone holes since the Air does not have a lower stereo speaker, just a mono speaker up in the earpiece. The charging port as well charges quite a bit slower than the Pro models. So, not only is the battery smaller, but it charges slower, too. It'll hit 50% charged in 30 minutes instead of 20 minutes like on the Pro models. So, if battery life and charging speed are important to you, as well as listening to music with both ears, you might be better off with a regular iPhone instead of the Air.
Making our way to the back of the Air, we have a soft touched etch glass panel with the smooth, shiny Apple logo in the center. Zooming into the logo, you can see that the Apple image itself is a tad north of the etch, but it's not a big deal. Perfect apples are hard to find, and it's only a minor defect. Moving up to the camera plateau, poured from the same piece of solid glass, this visor won't be popping off on its own. Apple says this singular 48 megapixel lens is two cameras in one, and for sure it can identify as whatever it wants, but it's still missing the dedicated wide-angle and telephoto lens from the Pro models. So, if you're an avid picture taker, it's just something to keep in mind. The rear-facing microphone has an IP68 metal watertight grill over the opening as well as a plastic diffused single color LED flash.
Honestly, one thing not a whole lot of people are talking about but should, is how Tim Cook single-handedly saved this year's iPhones from certain disaster. Like, we all know the tariff situation is wild, but there was 100% tariffs on electronics coming into the USA until Tim Cook bravely walked into the Oval Office with a gold bar potentially worth $150,000 and plopped it down on donald's desk. And boom, the next day all the tariffs on the iPhones were gone, saving us consumers about a 1,000 bucks a phone. Absolute brilliant emolument move by Tim. We were almost paying $2,000 for the air instead of a 1,000. And while we are safe for now, I do hope Mr. Cook has a few more of those solid gold bars up his sleeve ready for next year. Surprisingly, the flame didn't appear to mess with the oleophobic coating.
Finally, the bin test. Titanium is nearly twice as rigid as aluminum while being about 60% more elastic than aluminum as well, meaning that if it does bend, it won't stay bent. So, in theory, we should not have the same reoccurring bend gate issue we saw back with the iPhone 6. In theory, going All in with the first bend, freaking nothing. Flipping it around and bending from the front, we actually get some curvature this time. But thanks to that titanium, it snaps back as straight as it was coming out of the box a few minutes ago. Just like it was forged in the heart of a dying star or deep in the fires of Mount Doom, the iPhone Air has no business being this indestructible. Both of my thumbs now hurt along with my pride. The iPhone Air 100% passes my durability test.
But I did have a contingency plan just in case Apple won. And since Apple did win, it's time to execute plan B, quantifiably finding out the exact force at which the iPhone Air will break. Join me on a scientific field trip to my garage. With a crane scale behind me, we'll be able to get the official number of where the titanium snaps. I think there is a metal battery inside. Hopefully that doesn't come back to haunt us, but I imagine it'll snap somewhere along here. We're about to find the number. Okay, sticking it underneath these two bars. We're supporting the middle of the phone. This is so crazy. Oh, it's starting to bend. What are we at? 73. Nate: It's 100. Zack: The phone's still alive. Come here. Check this out. Nate: It's 120. 120. Zack: Oh, I heard something. We're at 171. I can't believe it's still alive. I hear something. The screen is still on, dude. 200 lb. Oh my gosh. 215. Oh, 216 lb of pressure. Okay, lowering her down. Oh, that's wild. The back glass is still intact. The front glass is totally shattered. right there below uh the bottom volume button. Oh, that's crazy. I still can't even move it. Holy smokes. That's how much weight it takes to break an iPhone air. Keep in mind that all 216 lbs was concentrated directly in the center of the phone. If you're a 216-lb person sitting on your phone, that weight is going to be distributed across the whole surface. Unless you have buns of steel, I imagine your pants pockets would rip off before any damage happens to the new iPhone Air. So, feel free to sit on it as much as you'd like. I can personally vouch that the iPhone Air is structurally indestructible, except for drops and scratches, which just like any other smartphone will still cause damage.
Luckily, that damage is far easier to mitigate with one of Dbrand's Ghost cases, which I also picked up on my impromptu Best Buy run this morning. It's super thin, has a never yellowing guarantee. If it ever does turn yellow, it won't. Dbrand will replace it for free, and it will still work with Apple's new Macsave battery pack. Plus, if you bundle the Ghost Case with the Prism screen protector we saw earlier, you'll get 42% off of the Prism. Use code JerryRrig at checkout with the link in the description, cuz protection is always a good thing. Thanks a ton for watching, and I'll see you around.