Not once do I remember thinking "I would like this phone to be thinner", yet I wish that this thing would have a bigger battery almost daily.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge was first with a thinner phone (and some Motorola that most people have probably never heard of?). But it is also quite misplaced, since they just released the 27 Pro, which moves the (stacked) logic board close to the camera to be able to fit a larger battery, going from 3582 mAh in the 16 Pro to 4252 mAh in the 17 Pro (both US eSIM capacities, 18.7% more!). But they also used the space to add a vapor chamber for better sustained performance.

The Air is just a different market. The Air and Pro optimize for almost the opposite:

- Thinness vs. battery life.

- Thinness vs. an additional GPU core.

- Thinness vs. sustained performance.

- One back camera vs three back cameras.

I like this year's line-up because there is much more choice: getting the absolute thinnest phone, getting an absolute performance monster with a large battery and plenty of cameras, or getting a great middle ground, which is almost as light as the thin phone, but has longer battery life, and one more camera, and no lousy 60Hz display this year.