I Bought a Fake iPhone Air on Wildberries for 5,000 Rubles. I Don’t Understand Why You’d Need the Original

I couldn’t resist and ordered yet another knockoff from Wildberries, one that diligently mimics Apple’s latest product. This time I got a fake iPhone Air — the thinnest iPhone in history. The Chinese didn’t think long about the name and released their version called the i17 Air. In the listing photos, the device really did resemble the original, but as soon as you opened the specs, you wanted to rub your eyes.

Looks very much like an iPhone Air, but it’s not an Air at all

The seller promised me literally everything at once. According to the description, this was a flagship that was in no way inferior to the real iPhone Air, and in some ways even surpassed it. It sounded great right up until the moment I started doing the math in my head.

What the i17 Air Listing on Wildberries Promised

If you believed the seller, I was buying a nearly full-fledged iPhone. In the product description, the device looked like a genuine flagship without a single flaw. Here’s the set of specs I was promised:

On paper, everything looked powerful: Apple’s proprietary chip, titanium body, advanced AI-powered system. The problem is that half the lines contradict each other, and the other half simply cannot exist in a knockoff costing a few thousand rubles.

How My Fake iPhone Air Differs from the Real One

The funniest part isn’t even the inflated specs. What’s funny is that the listing argues with itself. In the product description, I was promised iOS, an A19 Pro chip, and Apple Intelligence. But just below, in the specs list, it said something entirely different in black and white: operating system Android 14. So on the same page, the seller first sold me an iPhone, then admitted it was an Android. It reaches the point of absurdity.

Even in the Wildberries listing, you can see it’s nowhere near the original

And there’s a whole list of inconsistencies like that. In the description, there’s one 48 MP main camera; in the specs, there are already two at 48 MP. For battery life, the description claims up to 36 hours of video; the table is more honest — just 27 hours. There’s not a word about Wi-Fi 7 or Bluetooth 6.0 in the specifications; it just says Wi-Fi and Bluetooth without any version numbers.

The extras section is a separate spectacle. Here I was promised Siri, an Action Button, Dolby Vision, MagSafe, and Spatial Audio. These are all proprietary Apple technologies that simply cannot exist on an Android smartphone costing a couple thousand rubles. And the line “iPhone Air” in the box contents only confirms it: the seller is confused about what exactly they’re selling.

Plus there’s a charger in the box. Even Apple can’t do that

Now to the point. Installing real iOS on third-party hardware is fundamentally impossible. Apple permanently ties its system to its own processors, and no Chinese factory can get around this. On my unit, I saw this immediately: the interface merely pretends to be iOS, while Chinese apps and a Chinese-language search bar sit at the bottom.

Then the body. Titanium with IP64 protection is claimed. But the real iPhone Air has IP68 protection and actual titanium, while here the rating is lower than budget phones. The thickness gives away the fake completely: it’s listed at 7.1 mm, while the original is almost a millimeter and a half thinner. How can it be an “Air” if it’s thicker than the real thing?

What Details Gave Away the Fake When I Held It in My Hands

When the box arrived and I took the device out, everything fell into place. On the back, there’s a large oval camera module sticking out, inside which there’s only one real lens. That said, it looks very similar to the original. But there’s no Apple logo on the back panel.

Here’s what the i17 Air looks like in real life

On the front, there’s a camera cutout imitation resembling the Dynamic Island, but the bezels around the screen are noticeably thicker. The dock has Chinese Douyin — a TikTok equivalent — and icons that have nothing to do with Apple. The on-screen search is labeled in Chinese characters. There was no Russian interface out of the box, as promised in the listing — not even close.

The body is matte and black; it sits fairly well in the hand, but it feels like cheap plastic, not titanium. And yet, as much as I criticized this listing, the device did surprise me in some ways. It turned on right away, and the interface moves surprisingly smoothly, without freezes or lag out of nowhere. The camera also launches and takes photos, albeit without any of the original’s magic. Obviously, it’s miles away from the real iPhone Air, and my unit is brand new — it hasn’t had a chance to show how it performs over extended use. But the mere fact that a box from an Ali-Wildberries factory works right out of the box is already somewhat pleasing.

Is It Worth Buying a Fake iPhone Air

If you need an actual iPhone, the answer is obvious: no. This is not an iPhone and not even close. The real iPhone Air costs tens of times more, and there’s nothing to compare here — not in hardware, not in software, not in camera quality.

I honestly don’t know in what scenario it’s worth buying this

But there’s a nuance. This kind of fake does have one honest advantage. Since it runs Android inside, you can easily install RuStore and banking apps, which on a real iPhone in Russia are either completely absent or periodically appear and disappear from the App Store. For some people, that might matter more than an Apple logo on the box.

So treating this i17 Air copy as an iPhone means fooling yourself. But treating it as a cheap Android in a nice-looking body is possible, as long as you take off the rose-colored glasses beforehand. The main thing is: don’t trust the specs from the listing.