The iPhone Air makes a powerful assertion

The iPhone Air is as a lot an announcement as it’s a cellphone. It says one thing in regards to the individual utilizing it: that they don’t thoughts giving up just a few issues for a cellphone that’s meaningfully thinner and lighter.

That they can provide up all these additional cameras on the again and simply reside with one. That they, properly, went out and acquired The New iPhone — one which makes everybody go “Whooooaaa” after they maintain it for the primary time. That’s a hell of a whole lot of issues for a 6.5-inch slab of titanium and glass to say, however then once more, the iPhone Air isn’t your common cellphone.

You’ve already heard this loads, however I’ll go forward and say it as a result of it bears repeating: the iPhone Air is shockingly skinny and light-weight. On paper, its dimensions won’t appear dramatically completely different out of your garden-variety cellphone. It’s 5.64mm thick in comparison with the 7.95mm iPhone 17, and it weighs 12 grams much less. Isn’t this a whole lot of fuss over just a few millimeters? Possibly, however I problem you to choose up this cellphone for your self and never be at the very least a little bit shocked at how a lot lighter it feels in your hand. On the subject of the gadget that’s continually in your hand, pocket, or bag, these millimeters make a giant distinction.

However you don’t get a dramatically thinner cellphone with out giving up just a few issues. And people issues, boiled down to 2 classes, are battery life and digicam versatility. Neither is a catastrophe. There’s sufficient battery energy to get most individuals to the tip of a day, and picture high quality from the only rear digicam is sweet sufficient to fulfill somebody who’s not too choosy. However in case you ask anybody which two issues they’d most need improved on their subsequent cellphone, they’d most likely checklist these very options. Relying on the cellphone you’re upgrading from, this is perhaps extra of a lateral transfer.

For these two causes, the iPhone Air gained’t be the appropriate gadget for most individuals contemplating a brand new iPhone. However for somebody who’s not too demanding of their cellphone, the Air goes to really feel fairly particular.

So we’ve established that choosing up and holding the iPhone Air for the primary time is fairly cool. How about after that preliminary response wears off? After utilizing the Air for the previous week, the impact has been just like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge. I bought used to the lightness a day or two in, however the Air stored stunning me in little moments right here and there, simply becoming right into a pocket or a bag the place different telephones dare not go. Strolling round San Francisco, I stored the Air comfortably (with out a case) in my denims’ entrance pocket, which is one thing I can normally solely get away with utilizing my iPhone 13 Mini.

My general impression utilizing the Air is identical as with the S25 Edge: the slim profile is perhaps the headline attraction, however the lighter weight is the actual profit. Placing the Air in my backpack’s slimmest pockets is nice; holding the cellphone and scrolling with out having to periodically modify my grip is superior. And for the event the place you would possibly truly maintain the cellphone to your ear and discuss to somebody that manner, it’s only a bit extra snug than standard. These little moments are if you’ll actually respect the Air’s weight as its greatest function.

That’s to not say this can be a small cellphone. Just like the S25 Edge, it’s a giant cellphone with small cellphone vitality. It’s nonetheless a stretch getting my thumb all the best way throughout the 6.5-inch display screen. It’s a little bit smaller than the Edge in each dimension — just a bit shorter, slimmer, and fewer huge. However the edges are additionally barely curved in comparison with the flat sides on Samsung’s cellphone, making the Air really feel rather less safe in my hand. I just like the look of the Air’s frosted Ceramic Defend again, nevertheless it’s arduous to get a safe grip on it. I’m not a case individual, however I’d make an exception for this cellphone.

What’s the purpose of a skinny cellphone in case you’re simply going to place a case on it? The load, for starters. Apple’s personal MagSafe case for the Air is so mild it hardly feels any heavier than with out the case. There’s the bumper case, too, which helps with the grip difficulty. Each circumstances make it a little bit tougher to get the Air into the slim pockets it might match into in any other case. However you don’t completely quit the advantages of a skinny and light-weight cellphone if you wish to use it with a case.

I’ve heard some issues that the iPhone Air’s digicam bar would possibly make it really feel off-balance and top-heavy, nevertheless it didn’t really feel that technique to me as I used it over the previous week. The cellphone nonetheless wobbles if you set it down on a flat floor and faucet the display screen, which isn’t distinctive to the Air. The lengthy digicam bump helps mitigate this a bit, and the clear MagSafe case corrects the issue altogether. Yet one more good purpose so as to add a case.

The Air will get Apple’s newest chip, the A19 Professional, minus one GPU core in comparison with the model of the chipset within the 17 Professional. There’s no vapor chamber cooling right here as there may be on the Professional fashions this time, and also you’ll really feel precisely the place the processor is as quickly because it begins heating up. I didn’t encounter any workloads in my day-to-day that precipitated the Air to stutter or drop the display screen brightness. A brief Diablo Immortal session warmed up the cellphone significantly, however not sufficient to impression efficiency.

Within the no-news-is-good-news division: I haven’t observed any uncommon habits from Apple’s house-made mobile and networking chips. The C1X mobile modem is an up to date model of the chip that debuted within the iPhone 16E that doesn’t supply super-fast however hard-to-find mmWave 5G, however does assist the sub-6 GHz 5G I take advantage of most steadily. Between this and the N1 networking chip, I haven’t seen any pink flags waving on this path Apple is taking away from its reliance on Qualcomm chips for connectivity.

Now for the less-good information: battery life is simply okay. And truthfully, that’s a fairly good consequence for the Air; the scenario might have been worse. For those who’re a light-weight person and also you spend most of your time on Wi-Fi, you would possibly by no means have an issue with the battery.

Personally, it makes me a little bit too anxious to see that battery indicator drop into the 20s earlier than dinnertime, although in equity I used to be going fairly arduous on the battery with round 5 hours of screen-on time. On a a lot lighter day on my residence Wi-Fi, three hours of screen-on time took the battery all the way down to round 40 p.c by bedtime. I’d name that throughout the bounds of acceptable, if a little bit on the low finish for a $1,000 cellphone.

Respectable battery life after week certainly one of utilizing a cellphone doesn’t actually concern me. I fear extra about how that battery efficiency will maintain up a 12 months from now. If it’s lackluster now, it’s solely going to worsen because the battery naturally degrades. Apple’s current monitor document right here isn’t stellar, both. That’s one thing to keep in mind in case you’re the sort of one that desires to purchase a cellphone as soon as each 5 years and never have to consider one other buy in between.

You should purchase a little bit peace of thoughts within the type of a $99 MagSafe battery pack. Its dimensions are particularly tailor-made to the Air’s; it doesn’t match correctly on both of the 17 Professional telephones. However as a result of the Air’s digicam bar is slimmer, there’s extra room on the again of the cellphone for the battery pack. You possibly can put it on a 17 Professional or Professional Max, nevertheless it doesn’t align fairly proper and can dangle off the underside fringe of the cellphone (although it does keep placed on a Pixel 10 Professional XL). The battery is itself a lighter, slimmer model of the unique MagSafe battery pack, although if you truly put it on the Air you’ll discover that you just’re now not utilizing a super-thin, super-svelte cellphone. The entire thing is heavy sufficient that it’s disagreeable to carry and use for too lengthy, nevertheless it’s a adequate answer in case you’re out and about or need a recharge at residence with out being tethered to a wall outlet.

As regards to limitations: that digicam. I imply, technically there are two of them — the 48-megapixel rear digicam and a brand new 18-megapixel selfie digicam that does some cool stuff. However there’s only one sensor and lens on that rear digicam bump, despite the fact that the Galaxy S25 Edge managed to suit a second one. The one rear digicam feels justifiable on the $599 iPhone 16E; on the Air it appears like an actual concession.

It’s a tradeoff that lots of people will likely be advantageous with, and the 26mm-equivalent digicam consists of sensor-shift stabilization to assist hold shutter speeds and ISOs decrease in dim mild. It’s the smaller sensor utilized by the common 17 fairly than the bigger one within the Professionals, which is a distinction that manifests in edge circumstances. With the 17 Professional you may handle a good quantity of element from low mild portraits with the 2x crop zoom; on the Air, advantageous element will get smoothed away on the 2x setting. In any other case, portrait mode photographs are advantageous.

Along with the 2x crop there’s additionally the 28mm- and 35mm-equivalent settings that use element from a full-resolution seize to do a sort of digital zoom upscaling with out trying too digital zoom-y. However greater than the telephoto, I missed the ultrawide — particularly in these conditions the place I couldn’t transfer again any farther. Some photographs simply name for the drama of a 13mm-equivalent view, you already know?

The lack of the ultrawide bothers me, however the Air positive aspects some selfie digicam updates that may matter extra to this cellphone’s audience. The brand new front-facing digicam on the Air and the 17 collection makes use of a sq. format sensor that may rotate robotically between portrait and panorama orientations with out dropping a bunch of decision within the course of. You possibly can rotate or zoom out and in manually, or let Middle Stage take the wheel. It’s sort of wild to see it in motion, and I believe it’s one thing group selfie-takers will come to depend on with out eager about it.

The opposite cool new selfie function is Twin Seize, which data video from the front- and rear-facing cameras without delay. You’ve been in a position to do that in third-party digicam apps, however now it’s baked proper into the native digicam app. The selfie seize is overlaid on the rear-camera video as a picture-in-picture window which you can transfer to any nook of the body — however solely as you’re recording, not after the actual fact. Initially I used to be skeptical that I’d actually use this function, however I can already consider a handful of occasions within the current previous that I both want I’d had it or remembered to make use of it. Largely, I’m pondering of the movies I take of my child the place I’m only a disembodied voice that he’s speaking to. They’re principally the historic document of the place we went and what we have been doing, so it will be good to have the ability to look again on a few of them and see that I used to be truly there too.

There’s yet another assertion that the iPhone Air makes, and it comes immediately from Apple. It’s a declaration of what the corporate can obtain now, and a touch of what’s to come back. In spite of everything, in case you’ve made one super-slim cellphone, you may simply double that and add a hinge to make a folding cellphone, proper? Even when it’s not that straightforward, the Air asks us to do not forget that there’s nonetheless innovation happening in cellular {hardware}, regardless of the final decade or so of telephones trying fairly same-y.

However that’s hypothesis. Within the right here and now, I’ve been making an attempt to suss out who precisely the Air is for. And I believe this can be a gadget that lends itself to a lifetime of ease. It’s for somebody who’s unbothered by a brief battery and probably shorter battery lifespan. It’s for somebody who can let go of the photographs they missed as a result of they couldn’t zoom out. For somebody who matches that description, it’s a rewarding gadget to make use of. And it certain makes an announcement.

Pictures by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge