At a look
Professional’s Ranking
Execs
- So skinny it truly adjustments how you employ it
- Selfie digicam is a giant improve
- Very costly
Cons
- Battery life is simply OK, and received’t be after a yr or two
- One rear digicam limits choices
- Mono earpiece speaker sounds tinny
Our Verdict
The skinny design makes this cellphone really feel like the longer term, however Apple needed to make compromises to attain it that actually have an effect on your day-to-day use. With a $1,000 price ticket, you pay extra for much less.
Value When Reviewed
This worth will present the geolocated pricing textual content for product undefined
Greatest Pricing In the present day
Value When Reviewed
$999 (256GB) | $1,199 (512GB) | $1,399 (1TB)
Greatest Costs In the present day: Apple iPhone Air (2025)
$999
I’ve been utilizing the iPhone Air nonstop for over per week and I nonetheless can’t inform if I like it or hate it. In so some ways it simply feels like the longer term. However day-after-day I run into some compromise or minimize nook that frustrates me.
In a really actual sense, the iPhone Air asks you to pay extra for much less. It’s much less in good methods: it’s the slimmest iPhone ever and is so gentle for its dimension that it surprises you each time you choose it up. But additionally much less in unhealthy methods: a single rear digicam, one poor earpiece speaker, and considerably much less battery life.
It delights and disappoints in equal measure, particularly for an iPhone that prices a thousand {dollars} or extra.
The iPhone Air seems like the longer term
images and studying specs of the iPhone Air will not be sufficient. It is advisable maintain it. 165 grams isn’t a lot lighter than the 170 grams of an iPhone 16, on paper. And 5.6mm is skinny, however it’s laborious to get your head round.
However if you maintain cellphone of this dimension, with its 6.5-inch show and its clean titanium outer body, in your hand it simply feels futuristic. With the “digicam plateau” so excessive to the highest fringe of the cellphone’s again, and comparatively slender, your hand simply by no means bumps into it. You don’t see or really feel it, so the entire cellphone seems like this glorious little metal-and-glass slate. It doesn’t fairly obtain the sci-fi dream of holding a bit of “stay glass”in your hand, however it actually is getting there.
That is the “goldilocks dimension,” simply the joyful medium between too-small common iPhones and too-big Plus/Max fashions. It’s visibly a lot larger than the usual 6.1″ iPhone and makes watching video, enjoying video games, and studying the online rather a lot nicer. But it surely’s smaller than the Plus and Max telephones, and when mixed with the skinny physique and rounded body, is actually usable in a single hand.
Foundry
It’s virtually disappears in my pocket. Plus and Max iPhones really feel heavy and lopsided in a entrance pocket, and infrequently barely match. However iPhone Air is simply sufficiently small and skinny sufficient to slide proper in and I can virtually overlook it’s there. It’s like a magic trick.
I gave it to my buddy to take a selfie and he or she mentioned, “wha…what…I’ve nervousness simply holding this!” It seems like one thing that will break simply, however it’s surprisingly sturdy. Shockingly so, actually.
Certainly one of our favourite destroy-an-iPhone-for-science YouTubers, JerryRigEverything, put the iPhone Air via its paces, as have a number of others. All of them discovered the identical factor: This cellphone is virtually unattainable to bend to the purpose it breaks, and the brand new Ceramic Protect 2 is clearly way more immune to cracks and scratches.
Foundry
Dropping the iPhone Air edgewise on its nook continues to be going to depart a dent and will very effectively crack the display. No cellphone actually survives that very effectively and not using a case. However the sturdiness of the iPhone Air isn’t just spectacular for such a skinny cellphone, it’s spectacular for any cellphone.
Like the opposite new iPhones, the Air’s new Heart Stage entrance digicam is a large leap ahead for the iPhone. It’s 18MP and has a a lot bigger, sq. sensor. You possibly can take clear, vibrant pictures with panorama or portrait orientation with out turning the cellphone, and it neatly and rapidly adjusts the sector of view relying on what number of faces are within the shot (a function you possibly can simply disable in the event you like). The flexibleness of formatting is a superb trick, and total photograph high quality is improved rather a lot, particularly in difficult lighting circumstances.
Apple advertises “ultra-stabilized” video for the entrance digicam, and that could be overselling the digital stabilization right here. It’s stabilized, however it’s not on par with Motion Mode on the rear digicam, as an illustration.
However whether or not snapping a selfie or scrolling a information feed, the Air is a formidable feat of engineering. Even after utilizing it day-after-day for 10 days, I really feel just a little delight once I choose up the iPhone Air, and once I choose up a daily iPhone, it feels…previous. This surprises me, as I’m not sometimes a proponent of the tech business’s compulsion to make every part thinner.
Purchase the iPhone Air is caught up to now
Keep in mind when flagship iPhones had just one rear digicam? Apple remembers!
Twin rear cameras was launched with the iPhone 7 Plus and has been on each premium mannequin since. Apple’s taking us all the way in which again to 2015 with a thousand-dollar iPhone that has a single rear digicam.
Sure, it’s a superb rear digicam. The identical 48MP rear shooter Apple is utilizing on all three iPhone 17 fashions that effortlessly zooms in to the middle 12MP for a pseudo “optical 2x zoom,” and it takes good photographs, if nonetheless just a little too over-processed. With only one digicam, it might probably’t document Spatial Video, as even the bottom iPhone 17 can.
Not a day glided by that I didn’t miss having a second (or third) digicam. The shortage of an ultrawide didn’t hassle me for panorama pictures, however the lack of ability of the usual large digicam to focus lower than about 6 inches is a killer. I missed my macro images! And I used to be shocked at simply how typically I commonly use a telephoto of round 4x or 5x. I can at all times use digital zoom and get the shot, it simply doesn’t look as bought because it ought to. Not for a thousand-dollar iPhone.
The battery, at 3,149mAh, can also be caught in yesteryear. It’s across the similar dimension as within the iPhone 13 or 14, and whereas all of the elements are way more environment friendly and subsequently it lasts longer, it’s nonetheless significantly much less battery life than the essential iPhone 17. You’re paying $200 extra to get a few hours a day much less battery life.
Does it make it via the day with out charging? Often, sure, in the event you don’t do stuff like play numerous video games or watch a bunch of movies. But it surely simply barely makes it, and after a yr or two, when the battery well being has diminished, you’re going to be searching for a charger each single day. That’s not a thousand-dollar cellphone expertise for 2025.
Geekbench 4’s battery take a look at is dependable and constant, however simply runs periodic benchmarks on a loop with the display on (we calibrate to 200 nits). Higher battery life than an iPhone 16 isn’t unhealthy, however it’s behind all the opposite new iPhones and in our expertise, it simply barely avoids dipping into low energy mode after a day of informal use.
Manner again within the day, telephones used to have a single speaker. There can be one on the underside of the cellphone, used for apps and media, whereas the earpiece was solely used for cellphone calls. With iPhone 7, Apple began utilizing each of them to ship stereo sound. iPhone Air is a giant leap again, utilizing solely the earpiece speaker for all audio. It’s an immediately noticeable drop in sound high quality and quantity that impacts every part: Watching a TikTok video, holding a name on speakerphone, streaming a Netflix present, you title it. All the pieces sounds tinny and skinny in comparison with nearly any iPhone of the final 8-10 years. It’s tremendous for making a cellphone name, however your previous iPhone will sound higher than your new one, and that’s not an important place to be.
Foundry
iPhone Air efficiency is simply okay
The iPhone Air has an A19 Professional chip inside, however it deserves a giant asterisk. The model of the A19 Professional you’ll discover within the iPhone 17 Professional has six GPU cores, this one has 5. And whereas it has the identical CPU cores (two excessive efficiency, 4 effectivity) and the identical Neural Engine, media encoders, and every part else, it does not carry out like an iPhone 17 Professional.
In lots of circumstances, it doesn’t carry out just like the common A19 within the iPhone 17. Geekbench scores are tremendous, however sustained efficiency drops very rapidly because the processor will get too sizzling.
As you possibly can see, Geekbench outcomes are near the A19 Professional within the iPhone 17 Professional in some circumstances, and in others are nearer to the A19 within the common iPhone 17. In any case, these are nice scores, however they solely inform a part of the story.
Whereas Geekbench GPU scores measure GPU compute functionality, they don’t take a look at the flexibility to render real-time 3D graphics. For that, we want a take a look at like 3DMark.
The iPhone Air is slower than the bottom iPhone 17, thanks partly to the diminished GPU core rely (5 as a substitute of six) and partly as a result of the SoC in a short time has to decelerate to maintain from overheating on this new compact design.
It’s disappointing to see an iPhone carry out the identical or worse than its $200 cheaper cousin, however it’s necessary to view this efficiency in context. That is nonetheless a really quick cellphone, as quick or quicker than final yr’s iPhone 16 Professional, and it runs circles round premium Android telephones. Efficiency is compromised, however solely when in comparison with this yr’s brand-new iPhones.
Foundry
Must you (or anybody else) purchase the iPhone Air?
I’ve solely used the iPhone Air for practically two weeks and each time I choose it up I’ve moments the place I believe “that is the longer term” and different moments the place I believe “haven’t we solved this already?”
I battle to think about the audience for this specific iPhone. It’s a must to be sufficient of an fanatic to wish to spend a thousand {dollars} or extra to get a brand new iPhone whose defining high quality is that it’s extraordinarily skinny and lightweight. However on the similar time you must be informal sufficient to not care that you simply solely have one digicam that received’t do macro pictures or zoom very effectively. And your cellphone use might be informal—net, social media, and messaging—otherwise you’ll be searching for a charger day-after-day.
Are there ultra-premium cellphone consumers who simply don’t care in regards to the digicam shortcomings or that the battery dies noon in the event that they do issues like edit video or play video games? Will they shrug off the tinny single earpiece speaker? Are the actually informal customers that don’t care about these issues prepared to pay $1,000 or extra simply because the cellphone is loopy skinny?
And it’s loopy skinny; not simply skinny sufficient to be a style assertion, however skinny sufficient to really matter. Skinny sufficient to allow you to use this larger-than-normal cellphone with one hand and stuff it right into a entrance pocket with ease. Skinny sufficient that you simply received’t get that bizarre hand fatigue if you lie round in mattress scrolling in your cellphone. And all with out sacrificing sturdiness in any respect. It’s a formidable feat of engineering.
In the long run, I can’t assist however give the iPhone Air a reasonable rating. The headline function does make a distinction, greater than I used to be anticipating it to. However the corners Apple needed to minimize to make an iPhone this skinny additionally matter, and have affected my day by day use. You do actually pay extra for much less, in each a great way and a nasty approach.
