Apple iPhone Air review: What I like (and what I don't)

The iPhone Air (from $999) represents the first major shake-up to the iPhone family in years. The Air replaces the iPhone 16 Plus in Apple’s lineup, but it really stands on its own as a completely new device. In fact, the iPhone Air really feels like a blueprint for the future as Apple nears the 20th anniversary of the original iPhone.

Measuring 5.6mm, the iPhone Air is the thinnest phone in the world that’s not a foldable and yet it feels very sturdy thanks to its titanium frame. I’ve literally tried to bend and break this handset, and it stayed intact. The Air doesn’t skimp on performance either, packing an A19 Pro chip for playing demanding games and taking advantage of Apple Intelligence.

So what’s the catch with this superslim Air? There’s only a single camera, and while the battery life is pretty solid for something this size, you get less endurance versus the iPhone 17 Pro models. But it might still be the best phone for you, depending on what you’re looking for. Here’s the pros and cons in my full iPhone Air review.

iPhone Air review: Cheat Sheet

• Who is it for? People who want the thinnest and lightest iPhone possible but still prefer a large display and good performance
• What does it cost? From $999/£999/AU$1,799
• What do I like? The super thin and light design, the durable titanium build, bright 6.5-inch display, strong A19 Pro performance and decent battery life.
• What do I not like? Just a single camera (so not telephoto or ultrawide). Plateau area can run warm.

iPhone Air review: Release date & price

The iPhone Air starts at $999/£999/AU$1,799 for 256GB of storage. That’s $100 more than the iPhone 16 Plus, but Apple is betting that you’ll be willing to pay a premium for a phone that’s this slim and portable.

There’s just one problem. The iPhone 17 Pro starts at $1,099, which is just $100 more for a phone with triple cameras, a bigger battery and an A19 Pro chip with an extra GPU core and vapor chamber cooling for better sustained performance. So you should really think about whether this stunning design is worth it.

The iPhone Air has a release date of September 19.

iPhone Air review: Design

The iPhone Air is so thin and light that you’re worried for its safety when you see it from across the room. But you’ll feel reassured when you put it in your hands.

Measuring just 5.64mm thin, the iPhone Air edges out the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge for the thinnest phone we’ve tested. The Air’s so thin, in fact, that you might forget it’s in your front pocket.

Well, the whole device isn’t this thin. The “plateau,” or camera bump, runs across the top of the device and juts out. At least it doesn’t wobble on a table when you press down. Apple purposely crammed all the major components into this area to make room for a larger battery down below.

The iPhone Air comes in Sky Blue, Cloud White, Light Gold and Black. Frankly, the Black color makes the design look cheap and not as thin. I prefer the Sky Blue model I tested, which does a better job of showing off the Air’s thin profile. Some have complained that the titanium frame is too shiny, but I don’t agree.

If you’re worried about durability for a phone this thin, I think you can rest easy. I saw a demo that simulated a bend with 130 pounds of force, and the iPhone Air shrugged it off.

To further fortify the iPhone Air, Apple equipped the phone with a Ceramic Shield 2 display with 3x the scratch resistance of the previous technology and a Ceramic Shield back that’s 4x more crack resistant than glass.

It's worth noting that the iPhone Air has a single speaker integrated into the earpieces, compared to dual speakers for the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro series. During my testing the Air's speaker got plenty loud when listening to Apple Music, but it did sound tinny at max volume.

iPhone Air review: Display

Some have shared in our YouTube interview with Apple on the iPhone Air that they wish that this phone came in a mini size. I say there’s no need. You get the best of both worlds with this device: a large 6.5-inch display in a very pocket-friendly size.

And it’s a pretty darn good ProMotion screen, too, with a rated maximum outdoor brightness of 3,000 nits, a 1-120Hz dynamic refresh rate and anti-reflection tech built in.

Outdoors I put the iPhone Air up against the Galaxy S25 Edge playing the same “Bugonia” trailer, and Emma Stone looked brighter. Plus there was less glare.

The iPhone Air didn’t perform quite as well in our lab testing, covering less of the DCI-P3 color space and turning in a slightly worse Delta-E accuracy score (where a lower score is better).

iPhone Air review: Cameras

The iPhone Air features a single 48MP Fusion camera with 2x optical quality zoom. No telephoto. No ultrawide. But it is a pretty strong performer based on my testing. Just don’t expect much from the 10x digital zoom.

The iPhone Air does bring some cool new camera features to the table that are also available on the iPhone 17, 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max. This includes an 18MP Center Stage front camera that leverages a square sensor to let you shoot landscape selfies without having to flip the phone in your hand.

To test the iPhone Air’s camera I put it up against the Galaxy S25 Edge, starting with this shot of produce. The iPhone Air delivers much more realistic looking red and orange peppers with better sharpness. The coloring is off on the S25 Edge.

In this portrait comparison shot at 2x, the iPhone Air delivers a brighter looking image, but I much prefer the level of detail through the S25 Edge. The edges around my shirt look blurry.

I really like this iPhone Air photo of a pumpkin patch. You get superior contrast and definition than through the Samsung, whose pumpkins look unnaturally orange.

The iPhone Air does pretty well with this 2x zoom photo of the Bryant Park statue. It captured a brighter image (despite a yellow tinge) that lets you make out more of the figure as you zoom in. However, at 10x the iPhone Air’s shot has a lot more noise; Samsung wins hands-down.

To test low-light performance, I took this shot of a decorative skull on top of some books with the iPhone Air. The Air does a much better job than the S25 Edge, whose shot looks like a blurry mess.

Lastly, I used the 18MP Center Stage camera to shoot a selfie. This one comes down to personal preference. The iPhone Air’s image is brighter, but I like the punchier colors from the Samsung in this case.

iPhone Air review: Video

The iPhone Air is no pro when it comes to recording video. It maxes out at 4K and 60fps, compared to 120fps for the iPhone 17 Pro series. And you miss out on fun features like Cinematic mode for recording videos with shallow depth of field. It doesn’t do spatial video recording either for viewing through the Vision Pro and other headsets, though I don’t think that’s a dealbreaker.

You do get some welcome video features though, including Dual Capture. This lets you record using the front and back cameras at the same time. The quality looks great as you can see in this clip of me at the beach panning around the water’s edge. And I like that you can move your video window around the screen.

iPhone Air: Dual Capture video - YouTube

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I shot this vertical video side-by-side in 4K at 30fps of a fish pond, and the footage looks fairly crisp and colorful. As I zoom in, though, the video from the S25 Edge looks crisper.

iPhone Air: Video sample - YouTube

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Galaxy S25 Edge: Video sample - YouTube

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The iPhone Air performed better with its front Center Stage camera when I tested out its stabilization while running up a hill. The footage looked a lot shakier through the Samsung.

iPhone Air: Front camera video (Center Stage) - YouTube

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Galaxy S25 Edge: Front camera video - YouTube

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iPhone Air review: Performance

Packing an A19 Pro chip, the iPhone Air promises Pro-like performance in a very skinny frame. And I say “Pro-like” because you’re limited to 5 GPU cores, compared to 6 for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max.

I enjoyed smooth performance when playing Destiny: Rising, double jumping and using my grenade launder on multiple enemies while enjoying crisp graphics. I only noticed a drop frame here and there versus the 17 Pro Max.

Speaking of which, the iPhone Air having one less GPU core does impact benchmark scores. It reached 29.5 fps in the demanding 3DMark Solar Bay Unlimited graphics text, compared to 46.6 fps for the iPhone 17 Pro Max. The Galaxy S25 Edge also turned in a higher frame rate.

On Geekbench, which measures overall performance, the iPhone Air beats the Galaxy S25 Edge, and it finished our video transcoding test 20 seconds faster.

How about sustained performance? To test that, we used the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Stress Test, which simulates gaming for about 20 minutes. We ran it once and recorded the results, then did a second run right after that to really stress test these phones.

The iPhone Air performed quite well, with stability scores that beat the Galaxy S25 Edge by a fair margin in both rounds.

More surprisingly, the iPhone Air turned in cooler temperatures than the Pro Max when we measured the back of the phones using a laser thermometer in 5 locations and averaged the results. Though the S25 Edge was even cooler.

iPhone Air review: Battery life & charging

Here’s the big question on everyone’s mind. How good (or bad) is the iPhone Air’s battery life?

Apple claims “all-day battery life” but we decided to put that to the test in a couple of ways.

First up was the Tom’s Guide Battery Test, which surfs the web over 5G at 150 nits of screen brightness. The iPhone Air turned in a decent 12 hours. That’s nearly a half hour better than the Galaxy S25 Ultra. And the regular iPhone 17 lasted 45 minutes longer.

However, the iPhone 17 Pro Max lasted over 5 hours longer than the Air, so if you really care about endurance, the choice is clear.

I also compared the iPhone Air’s battery life versus other phones when streaming the same YouTube video over Wi-Fi for 5 hours at 50% screen brightness. The iPhone Air was down to 81%, which is better than the S25 Edge’s 67%.

Note that Apple sells a $99 MagSafe Battery pack for the iPhone Air that’s designed to deliver 65% more power. That’s nice, but to me it defeats the purpose of carrying a phone so light. Stay tuned for the full results of our testing on this accessory.

The bad news is that the iPhone Air doesn’t get the same fast 40W charging that the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro series does. So you won’t get to 50% in 20 minutes. In our testing we got to 55% in 30 minutes, which is just okay.

iPhone Air review: Heat

The iPhone Air puts most of it’s components in the plateau towards the top of the device, and this is the area that got fairly warm during my testing. For example, after playing Asphalt Legends for 10 minutes I measured this area and it got as hot as 106-109 degrees.

Playing the same game on the iPhone 17 Pro Max, the temperature was in the 96-degree range. When performing other tasks the iPhone Air mostly kept its cool, so your results will depend on the apps you’re using.

iPhone Air review: iOS 26 & Apple Intelligence

Like all of the new iPhones the iPhone Air comes with iOS 26 pre-installed, and there’s some features worth getting excited about. There’s the new Liquid Glass design, which adds slick-looking transparency effects to various apps, and I also like how you can better customize your lock and home screens with 3D-like spatial photos.

Major feature upgrades for iOS 26 come to the Phone app in particular. There’s Hold Assist for letting your iPhone stay on hold for you until a human comes to the phone. And Call Screening will help keep scammers away. I also appreciate the ability to add backgrounds to Messages, as well as add polls.

Apple Intelligence just isn’t that exciting right now as we wait for the new Siri to be fully baked (coming in 2026). But there are some noteworthy AI upgrades. For example, with Visual Intelligence you can easily look up anything in a screenshot via Google, such as that new pair of shoes that caught your eye. And you can also ask questions about whatever’s on your screen via ChatGPT.

However, this feature feels like it involves too many steps versus Gemini Live, which analyzes your screen without having to take a screenshot, and you can have a live voice conversation with Google’s assistant at the same time.

iPhone Air review: Verdict

I’m torn about the iPhone Air, as it’s a remarkable piece of engineering. This design is amazingly thin and light, and Apple deserves serious credit for making it so durable. It feels so strong I don’t think I would bother with a case.

I also like how well the iPhone Air performs. No, it doesn’t have the graphics might or sustained performance of the iPhone 17 Pro or Pro Max, but it’s faster than the Galaxy S25 Edge and remains fairly cool under pressure. And it offers better sustained performance than Samsung’s slim phone.

However, I don’t like that shoppers have to give up both an ultrawide lens and telephoto zoom with the iPhone Air. At least Samsung gives you an ultrawide camera that enables macro photography. But the iPhone Air’s main 48MP camera is very good overall.

Apple left some other features on the cutting room floor as well, such as fast charging and Cinematic Mode for video. So in some ways, the Air feels more like an iPhone Lite.

Overall, I think the iPhone Air is worth buying for those who want a super slim phone that’s very easy to carry that doesn’t sacrifice too much on performance. But you will have to live with some trade-offs if you want something this compact.