iPhone Air Review: A Compromise Worth Making (For Some)

While we've seen different iPhone models come and go (RIP iPhone mini and iPhone Plus), those models have typically been offshoots of others, offering a larger screen or more portable form factor, but essentially the same features apart from that. Perhaps that's why Apple opted not to call its latest all-new variant the "iPhone 17 Air," instead resetting the clock with the long-rumored, ultra-thin iPhone Air.

At first glance, you might scoff at the iPhone Air. Sure, thin is cool, but are you really going to sacrifice battery and camera, while paying a higher price than you would for the base iPhone 17? But that's a question that someone who hasn't experienced the iPhone Air in person would ask. After using it in person, I get it. Will it be my daily driver long-term? I'm still not quite sure — but it sure might be yours.

The iPhone Air is all about design — and frankly, the design is incredible. The iPhone Air certainly isn't the first ultra-thin phone out there, and I did find the Galaxy S25 Edge to be impressive. But somehow, the iPhone Air just feels even more next-level. Maybe it's the more rounded edges, or the weight distribution. Or maybe it's the feel of the glass on the back. Whatever it is, it's impossible not to be impressed the first time you hold one.

So, how is Apple able to achieve such a thin build? Well, most of the actual phone is in the thickest part of the device — what has traditionally been called the camera bump, but has expanded all the way across the device into what Apple calls a "plateau." The processor, camera tech, and speaker are all there — with the rest of the phone mostly being battery and display. It's especially impressive given the fact that the phone doesn't feel poorly balanced — it doesn't feel as though it's tipping back when held. It still just kind of feels like you're holding a pane of glass.

Christian de Looper for BGR

And, the super-thin design doesn't come with any design-related trade-offs. That's to say, the device still has the sensors for Face ID, there's still an Action Button and a Camera Control, and there's still a USB-C port on the bottom (even if it's slightly off-center because of the layers of display panel).

The design of the new device could well set the stage for the next decade of iPhones. Apple is long-rumored to be working on foldables, and current predictions set the release date of the first foldable iPhone to be 2026. What better way to field test the tech that goes into a super-thin foldable phone than with a super-thin non-foldable phone? It could also set the stage for Apple's future slab phones, too – with computational photography and battery tech improving, maybe now is finally the time for increasingly thin design to once again take center stage.

Christian de Looper

But, of course, all that is just speculation. For now, the iPhone Air is simply a stunning piece of hardware. It is also a durable piece of hardware. I'm not able to durability-test my loaner units from Apple, nor would I want to anyway. But plenty of others have done so and found that the combination of titanium frame and Ceramic Shield glass make for a device that's unlikely to spur the return of "bend-gate."

The only real downside to the feel of the iPhone Air? It makes Apple's biggest phone, the iPhone 17 Pro Max, feel like an absolute brick. I happen to be making that move as I write this review, and it seriously has me questioning how much I care about a triple camera system.

Thankfully, the iPhone Air doesn't skimp on the screen. We wouldn't expect it to -– after all, the base iPhone 17 now offers a ProMotion display, and the iPhone Air does too. In "tech spec" terms, that means that you'll get an LTPO OLED screen that can range in refresh rate from 1Hz to 120Hz, lowering speed to save on battery when content on the screen is static anyway, and raising it to deliver that silky smooth scrolling feel whenever there's something actually moving.

The iPhone Air features a 6.5-inch display, which is a little larger than the 6.3-inch display on the iPhone 17, but not dramatically bigger. The difference is small enough to where you won't buy the iPhone Air simply for its screen size, for example. It has a reasonably high resolution, at 1,260 x 2,736, and you'll find that even smaller text is nice and crisp. It's technically as crisp as every other 2026 iPhone -– they all have a pixel density of 460 pixels per inch, though the actual resolution varies because of their different sizes.

Also the same as the other iPhone models is the screen brightness, which is 3,000 nits at its peak. As a whole, I found the screen to be easily bright enough to see what was on the display at all times, including in outdoor environments. Again, Apple has standardized the screen experience on all recent iPhones, with the only differences being in size. I'm just glad the standard they've chosen is very high-quality –- there's nothing I don't like about the iPhone Air's display.

There is one aspect of the iPhone Air that's closer to the Pro devices than the standard iPhone 17, and that's the performance. This is due to the fact that the iPhone Air has the same A19 Pro chip as the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, rather than the A19 chip offered by the base iPhone 17.

The difference between the A19 and A19 Pro isn't massive, though –- and actually, while the iPhone 17 Pro devices have six GPU cores, the iPhone Air's A19 Pro only has five, like the A19. Not only that, but the Air also doesn't get the vapor chamber cooling system on offer by the thicker iPhone 17 Pro devices, which means that with sustained performance situations, like mobile gaming, it may heat up a little, and as a result, throttle performance slightly.

So, what makes the A19 Pro-powered performance of the iPhone Air better than that of the base iPhone 17? For starters, the iPhone Air benefits from the increased RAM, which is also faster on the A19 Pro. It's not all about raw performance, either. According to Apple, the A19 Pro is more power-efficient than the A19, which is important in a device like the iPhone Air, which sacrifices some battery size to hit that super-thin size.

Christian de Looper for BGR

However, all of this arguably doesn't matter –- it's just numbers. What really matters is how the phone performs in day-to-day usage. The answer? It performs... great — just like every other 2026 iPhone, A19 or A19 Pro. In normal usage, the phone never stuttered or lagged, and it loaded games quickly. It handled heavy multitasking with ease, and while under very heavy workloads it did heat up, I suspect most won't push it enough to get overly hot.

There's another performance-related area that's worth mentioning, and that's wireless performance. The iPhone Air is one of the first phones to offer Apple's new C1X cellular modem, coupled with the N1 networking chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread. The device performed very well across all different kinds of connectivity, and I noticed no difference between the cellular performance of the iPhone Air compared to the other devices in the iPhone 17 lineup.

That said, it's technically missing one feature — support for mmWave. You probably don't really care about that though. mmWave has proven to be a bit of a slow burn, and you would only ever really connect to it in areas of very heavy congestion, like a sports stadium, anyway. I'm not sure it's worth buying a different phone for mmWave support unless, perhaps, you're a season ticket holder and for some reason still really care about how fast TikTok loads when you're watching your favorite team with the expensive tickets you bought. That's not to say Apple shouldn't add mmWave support soon — hopefully its next-generation modem will support the tech. When it does, expect Apple's entire lineup of phones to offer Apple-designed modems.

Now, it's time to talk about the trade-offs. I love the iPhone Air, but not enough to ignore the fact that, indeed, a thin phone does come with a smaller battery. I would argue battery life is probably the biggest trade-off here, at least when it comes to daily life.

The difference in battery life between the iPhone Air and the iPhone 17 is noticeable. The difference between the iPhone Air and the iPhone 17 Pro Max I'm also testing is even more noticeable. If you're a heavy daily user, you're going to find that the iPhone Air's battery is slightly limiting. As a pretty heavy user, I ended the day with the iPhone Air with around 20% remaining, and the only reason I didn't charge before then is the fact that I was trying to see how far I could push it. I definitely would have felt the need to charge before my head hit the pillow at night.

But, I will say, ending the day with 20% is actually better than I expected, especially given my heavier use. Before actually using the phone, I expected to need to charge before the end of the day. That didn't happen, and actually I think lighter users will find the battery life to be manageable. That said, if you often forget to throw your phone on the charger as the battery winds down, you'll need to change that with this phone — the iPhone Air is a "charge at night, every night" kind of phone. If that's a habit you've already formed, or if you're anything like me and keep your phone basically attached to a MagSafe charger by your bed at night and at your desk all day, it shouldn't be an issue.

Christian de Looper for BGR

Apple, of course, has also released an iPhone Air MagSafe Battery. At first, I kind of hated this idea — it defeats the point of the iPhone Air in the first place. But, the more I think about it, the more I think it's a great idea. The iPhone Air MagSafe Battery isn't supposed to live on your iPhone. It's supposed to make things a little easier on days when you really need extra battery — like long travel days. You'll just have to remember it on those days.

To be clear, you don't have to buy Apple's own MagSafe battery — there are plenty of cheaper alternatives out there. Just make sure to double-check they'll properly fit the back of your iPhone Air before you buy one, as different phones have different-sized camera bumps.

Speaking of MagSafe, yes, the iPhone Air supports it. That's kind of incredible — and another example of Apple packing tons of tech into a thin package. Samsung can't seem to add Qi2 support to any of its phones, let alone the super-thin Galaxy S25 Edge. I also worried the phone wouldn't support the tech given its absence on the iPhone 16e — something I still can't explain. Regardless, you won't have to give up your MagSafe chargers or wallets for the iPhone Air. The phone doesn't support super-fast wired charging, though.

The camera is the other big trade-off of the iPhone Air, and if you're used to the dual or triple camera systems of other iPhones, you'll notice its limitations right away. The lack of an ultrawide camera in particular feels like a downgrade — you can still zoom with a phone without a telephoto camera, you'll just get lower-quality images. You can't digitally unzoom (without generative AI, I guess), so you'll just find that there's a button missing, all of a sudden.

Christian de Looper for BGR

As mentioned, the iPhone Air really had me questioning how much I need three cameras on my phone, and in particular, how often I use the ultrawide camera on a phone. The answer? Barely ever. To be clear, occasionally I do use it, but I'd rather move back when I can, instead of using the ultrawide camera, given how it can make images look. Again, I do use it sometimes.

For me, the bigger loss is the telephoto camera. The iPhone Air has Apple's 48 megapixel "Fusion" camera, which offers a 2x "optical quality" zoom mode using a sensor crop. This works quite well, but it still means anything past 2x (and anything in between 1x and 2x) uses digital zoom, and anything past 3x or 4x can start to look noticeably worse.

Christian de Looper for BGR

Still, as a whole, the photos captured by the iPhone Air looked excellent. They were vibrant and detailed with natural-looking colors. It is entirely possible to push the iPhone Air's camera to its limits when zooming in, and low-light zoomed shots start to lack detail pretty quickly after starting to zoom in. That said, even low-light shots offered decently bright colors.

Christian de Looper for BGR

The iPhone Air has the same front-facing camera as every other model in the 2026 iPhone lineup, which I'm glad to see. The front camera is an 18-megapixel camera with Apple's Center Stage tech. The cool thing about it is that its sensor is square, which means that rotating your phone for landscape orientation photos doesn't do anything. Instead, there's a new button on the screen that can switch between portrait and landscape orientation shots. It works really well, and I find it to be genuinely more convenient. It also automatically adjusts the crop using Center Stage depending on how many people are in the image, and you can easily switch between crop levels using a second button on the UI — for example, if you want to capture more of the background behind you.

I could easily see myself using the iPhone Air long-term, even after testing. As it so happens, I left the iPhone 17 Pro Max review for last, so it's the phone that my eSIM is installed in right now, and I'm loving how great the cameras are in Apple's best phones this time around. But there's no denying the appeal of the iPhone Air. Even as someone who doesn't really care about making a public statement with my phone, I just like the feel of the device in my hand.

My only real issue with the phone is its price. At $999, you're paying a bit much more for what technically amounts to a downgrade. There's nothing about the iPhone Air that's objectively better than the cheaper iPhone 17, except the A19 Pro chip, which is only marginally better here anyway. Instead, you're paying for what, admittedly, many people will find subjectively way cooler.

That's not something to be ashamed of. The iPhone Air is a stunning phone, not just for its ultra-thin build, but also for its lightweight feel. If those things appeal to you more than a versatile camera and super long-lasting battery, you'll love what the iPhone Air has to offer.

The competition

Technically, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge could be considered the main competition to the iPhone Air, but really, you're probably deciding between the Air and another iPhone. For what it's worth, I find the iPhone Air to look and feel far more polished than the Galaxy S25 Edge, even if it has a less versatile camera.

As for the other two 2026 iPhone models: The fact is that the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro are both technically better phones. They both have more versatile camera systems and longer-lasting batteries. The iPhone 17 Pro has the best camera of them all, coupled with even better performance. Do those things matter to you? That's something you'll have to figure out for yourself.

Should I buy the iPhone Air?

Yes. There's no shame in buying a phone for its design, and the iPhone Air is the ultimate example of why that could be the right decision for you.