00:00Today we have the thinnest smartphone Apple has ever made – the new iPhone Air. It's fair as
00:06the air enters my lair that Tim Cook's saying a prayer. It's gotta be a scare to arrive at my
00:12secretaire where I've got no hair, though I do declare that I will be fair. Feel free to stare
00:18while we disregard welfare. I am aware that this is a phone's worst nightmare. While the Air is
00:25kind of rare, I do have one spare. It's received much fanfare for its dramatic flair. It's time to
00:31see if it'll need repair or a grim re-pair. Pulling it out of the box, it is surprisingly light,
00:38and the mirror finished grade 5 titanium is surprisingly thin. Titanium is probably my
00:44favorite metal, and I am sad it's gone from the rest of the iPhone 17 lineup. It is cool though
00:49that it has the same polish around the edge that the original iPhone had 17 years ago.
00:54For the Americans out there, the iPhone Air is as thin as one Oreo wafer or three wooden toothpicks.
01:01It could also be half a Lego brick, the same size as three U.S. quarters, or you know,
01:07seven razor blades from my JerryRig utility knife. I do have a buy a big knife, get a little knife free
01:13deal going on until the end of the month. Just throw them both in your shopping cart at the same time.
01:17But let's not get distracted. Ice cream lids are another standard form of measurement here in the USA,
01:24and the iPhone Air is clocking in at about a quarter of an ice cream lid. For the rest of the world,
01:29of course, the iPhone Air is 5.6 millimeters thin. My worry though is that the button placement is going
01:36to compromise the integrity of the high strength aluminum. The buttons eat away a substantial
01:41portion of the titanium wall, and as anyone who's ever played Jenga would know, if you remove enough of
01:47the structure, things will eventually fail. But just like we've done with hundreds and hundreds of
01:52other phones over the past decade, let's start with the scratch test of the new Ceramic Shield 2,
01:58which is supposedly three times more scratch resistant. We'll see about that. Plastic usually
02:04scratches at a level 2 or 3, glass scratches at a 5 or 6, and sapphire usually scratches at a level 8 or 9.
02:10And as you can clearly see from my picks, the level 6 marks are basically non-existent,
02:16and we also barely see any scratches at a level 7. So I can't even say the thing I always say. Apple
02:23ruined it. The Ceramic Shield 2 from Corning is definitely a massive improvement this year.
02:29However, glass is still glass, and even if the Ceramic Shield 2 is harder than before,
02:34glass will never be invincible. Which is why I recommend a prism screen protector from a channel
02:39sponsor dbrand, which thanks to dbrand's nationwide rollout at Best Buy today, I was able to instantly
02:45pick one up at my local Best Buy store. dbrand is all grown up and playing with the big boys. So cool
02:51to see. dbrand calls this an idiot proof screen protector, and while my mom would not approve of
02:57the name calling, the tagline definitely gets the point across. With a simple swipe, place, and peel,
03:03the screen protector is perfectly placed every time. Beautiful. Real glass is where it's at.
03:10Apple says their new screens have an anti-reflective coating on the surface,
03:14but the anti-reflectiveness pales in comparison to my 2 year old Galaxy S24 Ultra. You can count the
03:20individual diodes from my LED desk lights on the Samsung glass, while the iPhone Air just shows a
03:26white rectangle. There's a clear winner. Better luck next time I guess. The front facing 18 megapixel
03:32selfie camera is also protected by the Ceramic Shield 2. It has a new square sensor inside, but we'll have to
03:38see what that looks like during the teardown. Subscribe so you don't miss it. The reason titanium
03:43is my favorite metal is because it's significantly lighter and stronger than other metals, and it's
03:48biocompatible, meaning that all artificial joints and screws that go into human bones and bodies are
03:54usually made from titanium. And even more interestingly, when humans are cremated, the only thing left behind
04:01in the dust is their titanium hardware. And I'm sure it's unrelated, but the iPhone Air is made with 80%
04:08recycled titanium. Thumbs up for that. The sound of scratching titanium doesn't pierce quite as hard
04:14as scratched aluminum, but the exterior is still indeed scratchable. The buttons on the iPhone Air are
04:20not removable. Making our way to the bottom of the Air – the derriere, some might say – we see this
04:26slightly off center charging port surrounded by 4 extra holes. I imagine these are mesh covered
04:31microphone holes since the Air does not have a lower stereo speaker, just a mono speaker up in the
04:37earpiece. The charging port as well charges quite a bit slower than the Pro models, so not only is the
04:42battery smaller, but it charges slower too. It'll hit 50% charged in 30 minutes instead of 20 minutes like on
04:49the Pro models. So if battery life and charging speed are important to you, as well as listening
04:54to music with both ears, you might be better off with a regular iPhone instead of the Air.
04:59Making our way to the back of the Air, we have a soft touched etched glass panel with the smooth,
05:04shiny Apple logo in the center. Zooming into the logo, you can see that the Apple image itself is a tad
05:10north of the etch, but it's not a big deal. Perfect apples are hard to find and it's only a minor defect.
05:16Moving up to the camera plateau, poured from the same piece of solid glass,
05:20this visor won't be popping off on its own. Apple says this singular 48 megapixel lens is two cameras
05:26in one, and for sure it can identify as whatever it wants, but it's still missing the dedicated wide
05:31angle and telephoto lens from the Pro models. So if you're an avid picture taker, it's just something
05:37to keep in mind. The rear facing microphone has an IP68 metal watertight grill over the opening,
05:43as well as a plastic diffused single color LED flash. Honestly, one thing not a whole lot of
05:48people are talking about, but should, is how Tim Cook single handedly saved this year's iPhones from
05:54certain disaster. Like we all know the tariff situation is wild, but there was 100% tariffs on
06:00electronics coming into the USA until Tim Cook bravely walked into the Oval Office with a gold bar
06:06potentially worth $150,000 and plopped it down on Donald's desk. And boom, the next day all the
06:13tariffs on the iPhones were gone, saving us consumers about a thousand bucks a phone. Absolute brilliant
06:19emolment move by Tim. We were almost paying $2,000 for the air instead of a thousand. And while we are
06:25safe for now, I do hope Mr. Cook has a few more of those solid gold bars up his sleeve ready for next year.
06:31Surprisingly, the flame didn't appear to mess with the oleophobic coating. Finally, the bend test.
06:37Titanium is nearly twice as rigid as aluminum while being about 60% more elastic than aluminum as well,
06:43meaning that if it does bend, it won't stay bent. So in theory we should not have the same
06:48reoccurring bend gate issue we saw back with the iPhone 6. In theory. Going all in with the first bend...
06:55...freaking nothing. Flipping it around and bending from the front, we actually get some curvature this
07:02time. But thanks to that titanium, it snaps back as straight as it was coming out of the box a few
07:08minutes ago. Just like it was forged in the heart of a dying star or deep in the fires of Mount Doom,
07:14the iPhone Air has no business being this indestructible. Both of my thumbs now hurt along
07:19with my pride, the iPhone Air 100% passes my durability test. But I did have a contingency
07:26plan just in case Apple won. And since Apple did win, it's time to execute plan B...quantifiably
07:33finding out the exact force at which the iPhone Air will break. Join me on a scientific field trip to
07:39my garage. With the crane scale behind me, we'll be able to get the official number of where the
07:45titanium snaps. I think there is a metal battery inside. Hopefully that doesn't come back to haunt
07:49us, but I imagine it'll snap somewhere along here. We're about to find the number. Okay, sticking it
07:55underneath these two bars. We're supporting the middle of the phone. This is so crazy.
08:05Oh, it's starting to bend. What are we at? 73.
08:08It's 100. The phone's still alive. Come here, check us out. 120. 120?
08:20Oh, I heard something. We're at 171.
08:26I can't believe it's still alive. I hear something. The screen is still on, dude. 200 pounds.
08:32216 pounds of pressure. Okay, lowering her down. Oh, that's wild. The back glass is still intact.
08:50The front glass is totally shattered. Right there below the bottom volume button. Oh, that's crazy.
08:57I still can't even move it. Holy smokes. That's how much weight it takes to break an iPhone Air.
09:04Keep in mind that all 216 pounds was concentrated directly in the center of the phone. If you're a
09:10216 pound person sitting on your phone, that weight is going to be distributed across the whole surface.
09:16Unless you have buns of steel, I imagine your pants pockets would rip off before any damage happens to
09:21the new iPhone Air. So feel free to sit on it as much as you'd like. I can personally vouch that the
09:27iPhone Air is structurally indestructible except for drops and scratches, which just like any other
09:33smartphone will still cause damage. Luckily that damage is far easier to mitigate with one of dbrand's
09:39ghost cases, which I also picked up on my impromptu Best Buy run this morning. It's super thin,
09:44has a never yellowing guarantee. If it ever does turn yellow, it won't. dbrand will replace it for free,
09:50and it will still work with Apple's new MagSafe battery pack. Plus if you bundle the ghost case with the
09:55prism screen protector we saw earlier, you'll get 42% off of the prism. Use code JerryRig at checkout
10:01with the link in the description because protection is always a good thing. Thanks a ton for watching
10:06and I'll see you around.
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