Tag Archives: iPhone Air

Modded Transparent iPhone Air with a Working SIM Slot Looks Like Apple and Nothing had a Dream Child

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12:28 AMHuaqiangbei operates on its own physics. The sprawling electronics market in Shenzhen is the place where flagship smartphones get dismantled, reimagined, and rebuilt into things their original manufacturers never approved and probably never imagined. It runs on American time, buzzes with microscopes and milling machines, and treats the word “warranty” as a polite suggestion. If you want something done to your phone that a brand explicitly decided against, this is where you go.

Taiwanese creator Linzin Tech went there with a blue iPhone Air, the thinnest iPhone Apple has ever made and the first one sold without a physical SIM slot anywhere in the world. He left with something that looks like a cyberpunk collector’s piece: a fully transparent-backed iPhone Air with a functioning nano-SIM tray carved directly into its frame, wired into the motherboard by hand, under a microscope, late at night. A Dbrand X-Ray case could never…

Designer: Linzin Tech

YouTuber Scotty Allen built an iPhone with a headphone jack in Huaqiangbei. He also assembled a working iPhone almost entirely from parts bought off the street there. The market has this reputation for turning Apple’s deliberate omissions into solved problems, and the community around it keeps raising the difficulty level. Linzin’s challenge was particularly gnarly because he wanted two separate modifications on Apple’s most space-constrained iPhone ever, one cosmetic and one structural, and both required touching parts of the phone that Apple engineers spent years optimizing down to the millimeter.

The transparent back came first, and the process was a laser job performed on the rear glass panel. Technicians at Changlong Technology stripped the internal paint layer without touching the MagSafe charging coil sitting directly beneath it, which is about as precise as it sounds. Once the coating was gone, the phone’s internals became fully visible through the glass: the battery, logic board, shielding, internal connectors, and the flexible cable running between the upper and lower assemblies with “Changlong Technology” printed right on it. The Apple logo floats above actual hardware now. It looks like a concept render that somehow got approved.

The iPhone Air has no physical SIM slot in any market, globally, which meant Changlong’s team had to use a CNC milling machine to carve a slot opening into the phone’s ultra-thin metal frame. The original Taptic Engine had to come out entirely because there was simply no room for both it and a SIM tray in that chassis. A smaller third-party linear motor went in its place. Linzin estimates the haptic feedback at around 98% of the original, with the main perceptible difference being less granularity between light and heavy vibration patterns. Apple’s Taptic Engine is genuinely one of the finest haptic systems in consumer electronics, so even a 2% degradation is something purists will notice.

Board-level microsoldering connected the new SIM reader to the motherboard, and after a reboot the phone recognized a physical nano-SIM and connected to a carrier on 5G. Hot-swapping requires a restart to register a new card, which is a minor workflow tax. The thermal picture is less rosy. The graphite heat spreader sheets were casualties of the laser process and were not fully reinstated, which pushed operating temperatures noticeably higher under sustained load. Linzin ran 20 rounds of stress testing and confirmed the throttling. IP68 water resistance is also gone the moment the frame gets milled. And on the morning he flew back to Taiwan, the microphone ribbon cable came loose, sending the phone back to Shenzhen for repairs.

Close-up of the machined SIM tray

Here is the thing though. Linzin paid real money for a phone Apple sells for a premium, then paid again to have it modified, accepted degraded thermals, lost water resistance, voided his warranty instantly, and still calls it worth it. His reason is genuinely practical: he changes phones weekly and eSIM-only means a carrier visit every single time. The modification solves a real problem for a specific kind of power user, and it does so with enough visual drama that you would probably auction this thing for three or four times its retail price. Huaqiangbei has been poking holes in Apple’s “impossible” list for years. This one just happens to be the most beautiful hole yet.

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HONOR’s iPhone Air competitor has 4 camera lenses, and a massive 8,000mAh battery

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If you squint, this looks like an iPhone Air. If you stop squinting, you notice it has an extra camera and an 8,000mAh battery that makes Apple’s thinness obsession look a little silly. HONOR just dropped its new 500 series in China, and the design inspiration is so obvious it circles back around to being bold. The phone’s flat metal sides, clean glass back, and minimalist aesthetic are all lifted straight from the modern flagship playbook. But this isn’t just another clone chasing a trend. HONOR took that familiar, premium silhouette and decided to fill it with hardware that directly challenges the compromises often made for the sake of design.

The entire strategy seems to hinge on that visual familiarity. Both the Honor 500 and 500 Pro are physically identical to each other, sharing a 7.75mm thin frame that feels deliberately calibrated offer slimness without the exaggeration and the spec-caveat. They even have the same 6.55-inch, 120Hz AMOLED display, so the experience up front is consistent. Instead of making the Pro a bigger, more unwieldy device, HONOR made the spec sheet the only real differentiator. It’s a clever way to offer a choice between “great” and “even better” without forcing a change in ergonomics.

Designer: HONOR

The standard Honor 500 (above), packs a dual-camera system led by a 200MP main sensor with OIS, co-developed with Samsung, and a 12MP ultra-wide. But the Pro model (below) is where they really lean in, adding a third lens to the mix and upgrading the stabilization for even steadier shots. It’s the clearest indicator of who each phone is for; the 500 is for the person who wants the look and the battery, while the Pro is for the user who wants all that plus a more versatile camera system.

Of course, the real headline grabber is the absolute monster of a battery hiding inside that slim chassis. HONOR managed to pack 8,000mAh cells into both standard AND Pro variants… that’s more than double of the iPhone Air’s 3,149mAh battery. The standard 500 gets 80W wired charging and a handy 27W reverse wired charging feature to share power. The Pro takes it a step further by adding 50W wireless charging, giving it the full suite of flagship power options. This single spec feels like a direct shot at every phone that dies before the day is over, turning the Honor 500 into an endurance champion disguised as a fashion phone.

The Pro justifies its title with a few other key upgrades under the hood. While both phones are expected to run on fast LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage, the Pro offers a higher 1TB storage ceiling compared to the standard model’s 512GB max. It also features a more advanced 3D ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, which is typically faster and more reliable than the optical sensor found in the base 500. Add in an enhanced RF chip for better connectivity, and the Pro’s premium becomes a collection of small but meaningful quality-of-life improvements.

Beyond those differences, the foundation for both phones is surprisingly robust. You get an IP68/IP69/IP69K rating for serious water and dust resistance, along with stereo speakers, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, and even an IR blaster. With launch pricing in China starting at 2,699 yuan ($381 USD) for the 500 and 3,599 yuan ($508) for the Pro, the value proposition is clear. HONOR is betting that people want a phone that looks like an iPhone Air but runs like a marathoner, and they’re not afraid to make the comparison impossible to ignore.

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