Brenda Stolyar is a writer covering consumer technology. Her beats include smartwatches, tablets, and wearables.
It’s also the first iPhone in years that people can’t stop asking me about. With a profile that measures 5.6 mm, it’s more than a millimeter thinner than the previous holder of the thinnest-iPhone title, the 6.9 mm iPhone 6. The design is truly impressive in person, with its frosted-matte-glass back, shiny titanium frame, and ultraslim build.
But looks aren’t everything. I spent a week using the iPhone Air and confronted the trade-offs that come with a thinner phone: the smaller battery, the single camera, and the phone’s tendency to heat up quickly. Apple mitigated many of those concerns with the iPhone Air — the camera, for instance, is really good — but my conclusion is that the day-to-day experience of using the iPhone Air isn’t enough for it to outshine a standard iPhone 17, especially at this price. Here’s what I found.
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- The phone is stunning. It’s startlingly thin, its screen is gorgeous, and it’s surprisingly strong.
- Its battery life is disappointing. For a power user, it barely lasts a day, and most people would probably need to buy an external battery.
- For what you get, the iPhone Air costs too much. The iPhone 17 has better battery life, better cameras, and better speakers, all for $200 less. But it’s not as thin.
The iPhone Air has a beautiful design with a large, high-refresh-rate display that offers a great experience for streaming video. Its single rear camera lens takes impressive photos in most situations. But if you use your phone a lot, note that the Air falls far short of the iPhone 17 lineup in battery life.
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What we love about the iPhone Air
Truly, nothing will prepare you for the feeling of how thin and light the iPhone Air is — and I’ve tested the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, which is only a hair thicker. Photos and videos don’t do it justice. Seeing it in person for the first time is a marvel, and using it feels like holding a thin sheet of glass.
The beautiful design is also surprisingly durable. The iPhone Air doesn’t feel as fragile to hold as I thought it might. I was prepared to treat this iPhone like a Fabergé egg. My colleagues immediately interrogated me to see if it was so thin that it might bend (visions of the iPhone 6 come to mind). But Apple claims that the iPhone Air is more durable than any previous iPhone.
Even with the pill-shaped camera bump on the back, which bears a striking resemblance to the camera modules on Google’s Pixel 9 and 10, the phone isn’t top-heavy. It feels comfortable to hold with one hand (which could be useful for accessibility). It’s also a nice departure from the chunkier iPhones I’ve grown accustomed to and typically use with a PopSocket.
The frame is made of Grade 5 titanium (known for its high strength), while the display is covered with Ceramic Shield 2, the latest version of Apple’s proprietary glass cover, which the company claims is three times more scratch-resistant than the first-generation version. The back is coated with the original Ceramic Shield (a first for an iPhone), which is supposed to make it four times more resistant to cracks. The iPhone Air also has an IP68 dust- and water-resistance rating.
But how well do these materials protect against bending? I got to see attempts to bend it in person. During a demo of Apple’s proprietary stress-test machine, which measures both durability and bend resistance, I watched the iPhone Air withstand over 130 pounds of pressure, and though it did bend, it quickly rebounded to its original form without any damage. I also tried to bend my own review unit later (sorry, Apple) and didn’t succeed. So it should be able to survive a trip in a pants pocket, even when you’re sitting down.
I also used it without a protective case most of the time, which is uncharted territory for me. I’m extremely clumsy, but it felt wrong to put a case on the iPhone Air, even though it’s an expensive device. I didn’t want to add any thickness or weight to it, and I didn’t want to cover up the design. But I did enjoy using a bumper case (which gave me flashbacks to the iPhone 4 days), as it allowed for a better grip without adding density to the phone. But such a case does leave the back fully exposed, if you’re worried about cracking it.
The large display is vibrant. The iPhone Air is only thin, not small. (People longing for an iPhone mini will be disappointed.) The iPhone Air has a 6.5-inch OLED screen with a peak brightness of 3,000 nits and ProMotion (which is what Apple calls its 120 Hz refresh rate screen technology). It also has the Dynamic Island for quick access to music controls, Live Activities, timers, and more.
Coming from the iPhone 16 — especially as someone who stares at their phone a lot throughout the day — I much appreciated the extra screen real estate. Scrolling through X, Instagram, and TikTok felt fluid. Watching the latest episode of The Summer I Turned Pretty didn’t feel cramped or have me wishing I had my tablet instead. And playing Alto’s Odyssey with ProMotion turned on allowed for even smoother graphics. The iPhone Air is a nice in-between size for people who want a screen that’s slightly bigger than that of the iPhone 17 (6.3 inches) but not as large as that of the iPhone 17 Pro Max (6.9 inches).
Performance is snappy. One of the main selling points of the iPhone Air is that it runs on an A19 Pro chip, like the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max. But its chip is a slightly different version: While both chips contain a six-core CPU, the iPhone Air’s chip has a five-core GPU, one fewer core than in the Pro models’ chip. This means the iPhone Air’s graphics might suffer a bit in comparison with the iPhone 17 Pro, a difference that’s likely to be noticeable only if you plan on using your device for mobile gaming or video editing. But I don’t recommend buying this phone for either of those activities — more on that later.
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Flaws that might also be dealbreakers
While I love the Air’s glassy design, vivid screen, and powerful performance, it has some significant drawbacks that keep it from being the iPhone that most people should buy.
Its battery life is underwhelming. I am a power user, to put it mildly. A smartphone battery simply hates to see me coming. And thin phones have less room for a large battery — it’s just physics.
When I tested the slim Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, which was released earlier this year, it lasted just 12 hours on a charge with my normal usage. So I was curious to see how Apple’s iPhone Air would compare.
To make the iPhone Air as thin as it is, Apple stored its internal components within what Apple calls a “plateau” beneath the camera module.
In addition to the camera lens, the plateau also includes the A19 Pro chip, the speaker, the C1X modem chip, and the N1 wireless-networking chip for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Storing the internal components in the module creates more space in the chassis for a battery.
Although Apple won’t confirm the exact size of the battery, the company claims that the iPhone Air can deliver all-day battery life and up to 27 hours of video playback — the same claimed battery life as with last year’s iPhone 16 Pro — due in part to that internal redesign and a powerful and efficient new chip.
But in my testing, I found that was not the case. Every iPhone 16 lasted far longer, and so does every iPhone 17 released this year. As with Samsung’s slim phone, I eked out 12 hours on a single charge of the iPhone Air. It’s important to note that, like many people, I use my phone for everything, including streaming videos and music on YouTube and Spotify, collaborating in Slack, editing in Google Docs, and catching up with family and friends on FaceTime.
On my first full day with the iPhone Air, I unplugged the phone from its charger at 9 a.m. I made a few phone calls that added up to a total of 20 minutes, plus a half-hour FaceTime call. I also scrolled through social media and browsed the web here and there throughout the day, for a total of about an hour and a half. By 7 p.m., 10 hours later, the iPhone Air had just 6% of its battery life left.
On the second day, I enabled the always-on display and a new iOS feature called Adaptive Power Mode, which kicks in once the phone learns your usage patterns and will extend the life of the battery if it detects that the phone won’t last until the end of the day. (It takes seven days for the new setting to learn those patterns and kick in.)
I unplugged the iPhone Air, fully charged, at 7 a.m. I used it to stream a 90-minute audio podcast on Spotify, scrolled through TikTok for an hour, and took a 20-minute phone call, and the iPhone Air was at 55% by 12 p.m. Over the course of the workday, I mostly left it alone except for answering the occasional text or quickly checking social media and my email. I also used it to take a 10-minute phone call. On my train ride home from the office, I used it to send some more texts and scroll through Instagram for about half an hour, and it was at 2% by 7 p.m., for a total of just 12 hours of battery life.
It’s possible that the always-on display’s adaptive refresh rate, which can lower to 1 Hz or max out at 120 Hz depending on what you’re doing, helped to extend the battery life. I plan to do more testing once Adaptive Power Mode fully learns my phone-usage habits, and I will update this review with my findings.
Either way, however, the iPhone Air simply doesn’t last as long as other iPhones. Results will vary depending on your usage, of course, but the iPhone Air’s battery limitations might force you to be intentional about how you use your phone on days you aren’t near a charger, or else attach a battery pack, which defeats the purpose of the ultrathin phone.
The MagSafe battery pack for the iPhone Air helps, but it’s an extra $100. Apple released a new MagSafe charger specifically for the iPhone Air, which the company claims will extend the phone’s battery life to up to 40 hours of video-playback time. It’s slimmer and lighter than the standard MagSafe battery pack, but it turns the slimmest and lightest iPhone into a regular-size one.
It gets the job done. While I was out to dinner, I used the battery pack to charge the iPhone Air, when both the phone and the battery pack were at 50%. It charged the phone 22% in about 44 minutes before the MagSafe battery fully died. But after testing the entire 2025 iPhone lineup, I can say that buying an $1,100 iPhone 17 Pro gives you more bang for your buck than buying a $1,000 iPhone Air and a $100 battery pack.
At least the iPhone Air charges quickly. Apple claims that the iPhone Air can charge up to 50% in 30 minutes with a 20 W adapter or higher. With Apple’s new 40 W dynamic charger (which, like the MagSafe battery, is also sold separately), our iPhone Air charged from 4% to 54% in 27 minutes.
The iPhone Air gets warm. Unlike the pricier iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, the iPhone Air doesn’t have a vapor-chamber cooling system, but supposedly, the location of the A19 Pro chip in the plateau improves both airflow and thermal performance. The iPhone Air also has the same aluminum spreader as the rest of the lineup, which is intended to help disperse the heat more effectively throughout the internals.
In practice, though, the iPhone Air would still get really warm during the simplest of tasks. I felt it heat up on my lap while I was using it to talk to a friend on the phone, while shopping online using Safari, while sending links of options to my group chat on Messages, while talking on a FaceTime call with a friend, and while charging it.
It didn’t happen all the time, but it did occur during tasks that usually don’t generate heat on other iPhones. I wouldn’t recommend using this phone as a mobile gaming device or for heavy-duty photo and video editing.
The rear camera lens is fine, but the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro are better in that regard. Like the $600 iPhone 16e, the $1,000 iPhone Air has a single camera lens. The iPhone Air’s lens is a 48-megapixel camera that combines four lenses into one. It comes with 1x optical zoom and 2x optical-quality telephoto zoom, but no telephoto lens.
It shoots 24-megapixel and 48-megapixel images (which you can switch between via the Camera settings) using the main camera, and it takes 12-megapixel optical-quality images when you’re capturing photos using the 2x telephoto lens (with up to 10x digital zoom). But it has no ultrawide lens, and you also lose out on features like Macro mode and Cinematic mode in video.
The front-facing camera is 18 megapixels and comes with support for new features such as Dual Capture (which allows you to record using the front-facing and rear cameras simultaneously) and Center Stage (which keeps you in frame during video calls and expands to a wider field of view for group shots).
As someone who uses their smartphone camera only to capture important memories or to take snapshots of random things throughout the day to send to friends, I thought I would be content with the single camera on the iPhone Air. I typically take all my photos at 1x anyway — I rarely use the telephoto or ultrawide lens. But during a night out for a friend’s 40th birthday, where I took both the iPhone Air and the iPhone 17 Pro Max, I found myself reaching for the latter.
On its own, the iPhone Air’s rear camera is very capable and almost on a par with its Pro-level counterparts. It delivers high-quality shots that are sharp and vibrant, with a good balance of exposure. The same applies to low-light images for the most part, though in some instances such images were underexposed and a bit noisy, and the colors looked muted.
But in comparison with the iPhone 17 Pro Max, it’s easy to prefer one over the other. The Pro Max also packs a 48-megapixel main sensor, but it’s larger than the one on the iPhone Air, which allows it to capture more light for higher-quality images, especially in dim environments.
The 17 Pro Max’s photos looked richer, skin tones appeared more accurate, and the camera system managed to handle various lighting conditions better. It was also nice to have the addition of an ultrawide camera for group photos. (That doesn’t mean you need to get a 17 Pro Max, though. The iPhone 17’s dual cameras should be plenty for most people.)
The lone speaker isn’t great for blasting music or podcasts. In addition to one camera lens, the iPhone Air also comes with only one speaker. I often put phone calls on speaker when I’m at home or in the car, and I use my phone to play a lot of podcasts and stream videos while doing my makeup. I’m used to the stronger soundstage that dual speakers provide.
During my testing, I would often set the iPhone Air to max volume to hear people on the phone or when listening to music. If you typically use earbuds to listen to audio, this shouldn’t be an issue. But it feels like a phone this expensive should at least come with two speakers.
The bottom line: It costs too much
On paper, the iPhone Air sounds like the ideal in-between option for people who want to get some Pro-level features without having to pay a Pro price. With the iPhone Air’s A19 Pro chip, you can experience a boost in performance and graphics similar to that of the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max.
The camera system, on both the front and back, is reliable enough to deliver solid images, performing well across various lighting environments. The iPhone Air also has a truly beautiful, high-end design.
But as I was using the iPhone Air, I found myself wishing it offered a few additional features to justify its price — at least one extra camera, a slightly larger battery, or one more speaker. Or if that wasn’t physically possible, a lower price.
The iPhone Air starts at $1,000 for 256 GB, while the 1 TB model is $1,400. The iPhone 17 Pro, on the other hand, starts at $1,100 for the same base storage — for only $100 more than what you’d pay for the iPhone Air, you get two extra cameras, a bigger battery, an additional graphics core, and a more advanced thermal system.
And compare that to the $800 iPhone 17. (We dive into the differences in depth in our guide to the best iPhones.) For $200 less than you’d pay for the iPhone Air, you get a dual camera system, battery life that lasted up to two days on a charge in our testing, and the same ProMotion display, with variable refresh rate, that the pricier Pro models offer.
Top pick
The iPhone 17 now comes with features once reserved for Apple’s Pro models, including a bigger and brighter display with a 120 Hz refresh rate, a higher-resolution front-facing camera that takes better selfies, and long-lasting battery life.
For us, the iPhone Air is simply too expensive for what it gives you. It’s a phone that you buy because of how it looks — and it may be a sign of iPhones to come. With rumblings that it may be a precursor to a foldable phone, the iPhone Air may be setting the stage for an entirely new product category. That’s exciting.
But if you need to buy an iPhone today, the iPhone Air is not the best one for most people. The iPhone 17 and 17 Pro, our top pick and upgrade pick, respectively, are better values.
Despite knowing all that, some people may still buy an iPhone Air — and we get that. It really is beautiful. But if you go that route, I suggest throwing in that MagSafe battery pack (or any external battery) with your purchase.
This article was edited by Caitlin McGarry and Jason Chen.