Apple iPhone 17: Final battery capacities hint at advantage for eSIM variants

In the US, iPhones haven’t had a SIM card slot for three years. Until now, Apple has not used this extra space, but that is apparently changing this year. This information comes from a Chinese battery certification (see screenshot below from the well-known Apple leaker ShrimpApplePro on X) and should therefore be quite reliable. Accordingly, the iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max without a physical SIM slot will offer about 5% more battery capacity than the corresponding models with a conventional SIM card tray.

As it seems, only the iPhone 17 base model will not benefit from a larger battery in the eSIM version, Apple presumably hasn’t put in the extra effort in that case. Whether European customers will get the eSIM-only versions of the iPhone 17 family for the first time has not yet been proven, but there have been some hints in that direction. Overall, the battery capacity also increases by several percentage points compared to the predecessors, especially for the iPhone 17 Pro, which will have a battery that is 18.6% larger than the current iPhone 16 Pro. The unofficial successor to the iPhone 16 Plus, probably called the iPhone 17 Air, loses almost 50% of its capacity but slims down to 0.22 inches in thickness.