iPhone Air, one year later
A year, a few drops, zero cases. Here's what it's actually like to live with the thinnest iPhone ever made.
A year, a few drops, zero cases. Here's what it's actually like to live with the thinnest iPhone ever made.
For a full year now, the iPhone Air has been my only phone. Every day, every trip, every walk, and a fair number of photos on this website. So this isn't a first-impressions review. This is what's left after the "wow, it's so thin" phase wears off.
Short version: I'm happy with it. Not blindly happy. There are things I'd change. But I'd buy it again.
Let's start with the obvious. This phone is sleek. At 5.6 mm thick and 165 grams, it doesn't feel like a brick in your pocket the way most phones do now. You forget it's there, and then you pick it up and still get that small "huh, nice" feeling, even after a year.
It's genuinely good to carry. Jeans pocket, jacket pocket, one hand on a crowded tram. Big screen, small presence. That combination is the reason to buy this phone, and it delivers.
This was my biggest worry. A phone this thin feels like it should snap if you look at it wrong. I'll be honest: I don't use a case. And it has fallen. More than once. Onto real floors.
It's still fine. No bend, no cracked glass, nothing that would make me nervous. The titanium frame and the Ceramic Shield glass on the front and back are doing their job. I'm not recommending you drop-test your phone, but if durability is the thing stopping you, after a year of real life I can tell you it's sturdier than it looks.
It looks fragile. It isn't. That's the best surprise of the year.
The battery gets me through one full day. Morning to night, with photos, maps, messages, some video, I go to bed with something left. But it's one day, not two. If you're used to phones that last into the next afternoon, this isn't that.
On long travel days, heavy navigation or a lot of 4K video, I keep an eye on the percentage. Apple sells a MagSafe battery made for this phone, which takes video playback from 27 to 40 hours. That says a lot about where the trade-off is. You're carrying less phone, so you're carrying less battery.
There's one camera on the back: a 48MP main sensor with a 2x "optical-quality" crop for portraits. For everyday photos it's excellent. Sharp, natural colours, great in daylight, solid at night. Some of the photos in my gallery were shot on it.
What you don't get is an ultra-wide or a real zoom lens. As someone who takes photography seriously, I notice that. No wide landscapes from close up, no macro, no 5x shots of something far away. For most people it won't matter. For me, it's the one thing that occasionally makes me reach for another camera.
The A19 Pro chip is the same family as the Pro models, and after a year it still feels fast. Editing photos, switching between apps, nothing stutters. I went with the 512 GB version and I'm glad I did. With photos and 4K video, I've never had to think about storage. If you shoot a lot, don't go for the smallest option.
Here's the honest list, including the things that bug me and that you should know before buying:
| Storage | 256 GB, 512 GB (mine), 1 TB |
|---|---|
| Display | 6.5" Super Retina XDR OLED, 2736 × 1260 at 460 ppi, ProMotion up to 120Hz, Always-On, up to 3000 nits outdoors |
| Chip | A19 Pro: 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, 16-core Neural Engine |
| Rear camera | 48MP Fusion Main (26 mm, ƒ/1.6, sensor-shift OIS), 12MP 2x Telephoto (optical quality), digital zoom up to 10x |
| Video | 4K Dolby Vision up to 60 fps, Action mode, slo-mo up to 240 fps |
| Front camera | 18MP Center Stage, ƒ/1.9, 4K Dolby Vision video |
| Battery | Up to 27 hours video playback (40 hours with iPhone Air MagSafe Battery) |
| Charging | USB-C (USB 2), 50% in about 30 min with 20W+, MagSafe and Qi2 up to 20W |
| Build | Titanium frame, Ceramic Shield 2 front, Ceramic Shield back, IP68 (6 m for 30 min) |
| Size & weight | 156.2 × 74.7 × 5.64 mm, 165 g |
| Connectivity | 5G (Apple C1X modem), Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, Thread, NFC, second-gen Ultra Wideband |
| SIM | Dual eSIM only, no physical SIM |
| Controls | Action button, Camera Control, Face ID |
| Colours | Space Black, Cloud White, Light Gold, Sky Blue |
Specifications from Apple's official tech specs page. Battery figures are Apple's own test results; real-world use varies.
If you want a big screen in a phone that's a pleasure to carry, and you mostly take everyday photos, the iPhone Air is a great choice. If you need two-day battery life, an ultra-wide or zoom lens, or you swap SIM cards a lot while travelling, look at the Pro or the regular iPhone instead.
A year in, the design still makes me smile, it's survived my clumsiness, and it gets through my day. Just know what you're giving up for that thinness.
— Desly