The smartphone is thinner than the iPhone Air released 10 years ago

Many eyes widened in amazement when Apple CEO Tim Cook officially introduced the iPhone Air. True to its name, what makes this iPhone special is its super thin frame - most points on the device are only 5.64 mm thick, the camera bump is slightly thicker and it is the thinnest iPhone ever produced.

What many people seem to forget in the hype surrounding Apple's mastery of product design is that about ten years ago, there was a phone that was even thinner than the iPhone Air.

So thin that it's considered the world's thinnest phone. Its brand ambassador is none other than Hugh "Wolverine" Jackman. And it comes from an Indian brand.

That's the Micromax Canvas Sliver 5, which is incredibly thin at just 5.1 mm, and took the market by storm in 2015.

In fact, ultra-thin phones first became a craze in 2014-2015. We saw a slew of phones that seemed to have been left without a proper meal for months. In fact, the thinnest phone ever, the Vivo X5 Max, which was a whopping 4.75mm thin (and still the thinnest non-foldable phone to this day), was launched in 2014.

Micromax was a leading Indian smartphone brand at the time and had a significant following not only in India but also in some international markets, like Russia - it was the tenth largest phone manufacturer in the world as of early 2015.

In its home market of India, the company is practically on par with the mighty Samsung ( / ), and is far ahead of the likes of Oppo, Vivo, Apple and newcomers like Xiaomi and OnePlus. They offer devices with good specifications and decent enough designs at surprisingly affordable prices in a very price-sensitive market.

Having been criticized for being cheap, they decided to create “expensive” products by their standards, targeting the high-end customers. One of the first products in this “higher-end” line is a phone that Micromax claims will be the “thinnest phone ever”. It is priced at 17,999 Rupees and is called the Micromax Canvas Silver 5!

Micromax has fueled the Canvas Sliver 5 hype with a highly visible ad campaign featuring Hugh Jackman. The glossy print ads feature Jackman holding the phone in a way that emphasizes its thinness and leans on a subtle and minimalistic message rather than the big specs and comparisons that are Micromax's trademark.

While the world is raving about the iPhone Air, the Micromax Canvas Silver 5 reminds us that a decade ago, an Indian brand had it all - market share, Hugh Jackman as its brand ambassador, and the thinnest phone in the world. A phone that was even thinner than the iPhone Air.