iPhone Air not only looks stunning, it’s actually a great phone
Apple's thinnest iPhone packs premium features into a 5.6mm frame, but one of its supposed weaknesses was something that stunned us most.
With iPhone Air’s incredibly thin form and lightweight design, you can easily forget you have it in your pocket.
It doesn’t quite float in the air as the Apple marketing would have you believe, but at 5.6mm thin and just 165 grams, it is the most comfortable and stylish phone to carry around.
Yet remarkably, it packs most of what you expect in a premium phone in 2025.
When I first watched it being launched, I thought it was pretty cool but wondered who it was really aimed at.
As someone who loves photography, I’ve always looked out for the phone with the best camera and zoom.
But after using the Fold7 from Samsung, the idea of having a super thin phone actually appeals a lot.
In its marketing of the iPhone Air, Apple teases ‘so this is what the future looks like’.
Some have already suggested it is the first half of a new folding iPhone, tipped to come out next year.
Clearly there has been a lot of work to completely redesign the camera and A19 Pro chip configuration to make it all fit.
That in itself is an engineering and design marvel.
The iPhone Air is a phone that appeals to people who want something different, innovative, cool, and with the ‘wow’ factor.
From the first time you use it, and as you show it to friends, it has that and more.
What surprised me though, was how good it was in the area deemed one of its weaknesses.
With just the single camera, I thought I would feel really hamstrung by the lack of optical zoom and ultra wide lens.
But the 48 megapixel camera takes beautiful pictures in both 24MP and 48MP resolution.
And on the plus size, you might actually get more exercise in moving a little closer to the subjects you are trying to capture!
You get decent quality two times crops and can zoom up to ten times with digital but the results past about five times drop off noticeably.
The single 48MP sensor is twice as large as that on the iPhone 16e so you are definitely getting a better camera in a very thin design.
As expected, you can shoot in 4K video up to 60 frames per second with the new dual capture feature, showing your reaction to what you are filming, also on offer.
The 18MP front camera for selfies is the same as the others in the new iPhone with centre stage for photos and video calls, tap to zoom and rotate and ultra-stabilised video.
In our testing, we were able to capture some beautiful images and video in both low light and full sunlight.
The iPhone Air takes great portraits, panoramas, long exposure shots using live mode, as well as time lapses, slow-motion videos and cinematic video with bokeh effect.
The 6.5 inch super retina XDR display offers a super fast and smooth 120Hz refresh rate and a very impressive 3000 nits peak brightness.
The titanium frame is incredibly strong as Apple demonstrated when it showed tests of up to 60kg of force through it to see how much it would bend. About 20kg is about what a normal person could do if they were trying to bend it.
The display is protected by ceramic shield 2, a new coating bonded at atomic level, which increases scratch resistance by three times.
After carrying it, without a case, in pockets with both sand and keys, it continues to look brand new.
With an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance, it is a phone you could be using on a dirty building site or near the water with confidence.
While its battery life is definitely cited a weakness, we didn’t find it to be a major issue, with it quickly charging via our magsafe charging car phone holder.
If you are looking for more battery life and a better camera system, the cheaper iPhone 17 might be your best bet given you also have the ultra wide lens, though the display is smaller at 6.3 inches.
Apple says the iPhone Air offers 27 hours of video playback, compared with 30 for the iPhone 17, and 37 hours for the iPhone Pro Max models.
Given its super slim size, the iPhone Air has no SIM card holder, so you will need to convert to an eSIM which is not hard.
One of the most criticised features of the iPhone Air is its speaker system.
The single speaker is in the earpiece at the top of the device and does not have a bottom-firing speaker for a stereo effect.
For me playing music, watching a YouTube clip or Netflix, it actually sounds perfectly fine.
If I am in a noisy environment, I normally put in my AirPods Pro 3 buds to get the very best sound along with great noise cancellation.
The iPhone Air runs the latest iOS26 with its super liquid glass fluid display and 3D spatial scene wallpaper photos which really make your best family portraits pop out each time you pick up your phone.
The A19 Pro chip is 40 per cent faster than the one in the iPhone 14 Pro which means the iPhone Air is more than capable to doing everything from video editing to the most demanding AAA games.
With a price tag starting at $1799 with 256GB of storage, the iPhone Air is $400 more than the iPhone 17, which has similar features, including a better camera, though a smaller screen.
The Air is a phone which is aimed at those wanting elegant design, portability and style, along with great performance.
It’s definitely a niche product, a masterpiece of minimalism, as some are describing it, for those who are happy to pay to be at the forefront of innovation.
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Originally published as iPhone Air not only looks stunning, it’s actually a great phone
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