Apple iPhone Air Review: Ultra-light phone packed with Pro power

As Apple unveiled its iPhone 17 series last month, most eyes were riveted on the Air variant (first of its kind) as it boasted an ultra-slim design (positioned as the thinnest and lightest iPhone ever) and innovative features. Let’s look at what it has to offer:

Design and Build Quality

Taking inspiration from the MacBook Air, the iPhone Air is impressively thin at just 5.6mm and weighs 165g. Its lightweight design makes everyday tasks like messaging and scrolling on social media apps a breeze, and there will be less hand fatigue.

The internal components are cleverly designed, with the processor placed in the camera plateau at the top, and Apple has also let go of the physical SIM slot to make more room for high-density battery cells. 

Though it looks fragile, the iPhone Air is remarkably sturdy. Apple has used aerospace quality grade-5 titanium for the frame around the display. It is super light in weight, but more durable than stainless steel in terms of superior strength-to-weight ratio.

In every practical sense, it won't crack or bend that easily. For instance, when kept in the back pocket and accidentally sit on a couch.

Another notable aspect of iPhone Air is that comes with new Ceramic Shield 2 on the front panel. It is said to be most durable screen guard on a phone to date. It is 3x better scratch resistance than previous version.

Apple iPhone Air.

On the back too, it has Ceramic Shield (gen 1), which is 4x sturdier than the previous iPhone iterations. So far, as you can see the cover photos, there are no scars on the display and the back panel.

Also, the device comes with IP68 rating, meaning it can sustain pressure in a fresh water body for up to six metres depth for close to 30 minutes.

Apple iPhone Air.

In the durability test video in a lab available on YouTube, iPhone Air was subjected to bending at the middle with 60 pound weight (around 27 kgs), it survived. Many have conducted far more torturous tests on the device, but managed to live another day.

In terms of durability, Apple has covered all bases to ensure the iPhone Air serves the customer for several years.

That said, I advise prospective buyers not to push their luck by performing any stupid bending tests on the iPhone Air just to show off to their friends.

Given the expensive price tag of the device, to be on a safer side, get a cover case. If you don't want a bulky one, Apple has a specially designed Air cases that preserves the visual appeal of the super slim phone. It covers the edges of the iPhone and the extended contours ensure the display and the back panel is protected when it falls on flat surface. Also, it comes with crossbody lanyard option, customers can adjust it to the waist length and there is less chance of dropping the iPhone, unless they suffer a heavy fall on the floor.

Our review unit is light gold and it looks lovely in the sunlight. The glass back has a frosted white matte finish and does a fine job repelling the fingerprint smudges.

But, the titanium rail with jewellary-like lustorous finish around the edges, catches those stain pretty quickly.

The company offers the iPhone Air in three other colours--space black, cloud white, and sky blue.

Display

The iPhone Air sports a 6.5‐inch Super Retina XDR (2736x1260p) display and supports 3,000 nits peak brightness and ProMotion technology, which enables the device to support up to 120Hz refresh rate. And Apple has incorporated anti‐reflection coating on the display, a first for an iPhone to date. Even the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro models come with it.

The display is great for multimedia consumption and definitely see the improvements when viewing content outdoors. There is less reflection issues compared to the previous iPhone versions.

The device also supports always-on display feature, but I recommend to turn it off to conserve battery life.

Apple may have let go off extra camera sensors and physical SIM, but it has ensured all the physical buttons are in place like in a standard iPhone. It features action button in the left side just above the volume rockers. The power and camera buttons on the right side.

There is a Type-C USB port at the base along with speakers and microphone. However, for obvious reasons, the sound output from the speaker is not as loud as the regular iPhone and Pro models.

The FaceID continues to be a gold standard for biometric security on a phone in the industry. I did not face any false rejection issue during the entire review period.

Performance and battery life

The iPhone Air is powered by A19 Pro chipset same as the one in iPhone 17 Pro series models, but with one less GPU core.

The new 3nm class Apple A19 Pro chipset comes with a 6-core CPU with 2 performance and 4 efficiency cores, a 6-core GPU with Neural Accelerators and a 16-core Neural Engine. It promises 10 per cent to 14 per cent improvements in terms of single-core and multi-core benchmarking scores compared to the predecessor.

Also, it can deliver up to 40 per cent improved CPU performance over A18 Pro. Also, the GPU can offer 3X enhanced performance, and the Neural Engine can deliver 4X improved performance in terms of AI compute against the predecessor.

Be it operating a camera, playing games or running generative Artificial Intelligence doing any other intense workload, the device waltz through the day without breaking a sweat.

It also supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing to deliver immersive gaming experience and it does a fine job. During extended sessions, particularly when outdoors, it does get warm at the top near the camera, but not overwhelming enough to complain about.

Apple iPhone Air.

With iOS 26, Apple has introduced all-new Liquid Glass user interface. The user experience is very subjective. Many including me, love the super translucent UX, but others may not.

Also, there are some bugs in it; one such issue I faced was in the onscreen keyboard, which some times, fails to properly align with the chat window in messenger apps.

But, these things are temporary, as future updates will resolve them. Recent iOS 26.0.1 fixed several bugs including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless connectivity in the new iPhone Air, 17 and 17 Pro series.

It also addressed the issues in low-light photos captured by latest models. The iPhone Air supports all the Apple Intelligence features including Image Playground, realtime language translations, and more.

The most important aspect of the iPhone Air, which every buyer will be concerned about is the battery life. Under normal usage with Wi-Fi connectivity, it can easily last a full day.

The iPhone Air also features proprietary C1X, a new cellular modem designed by Apple. C1X is up to 2x faster than C1, and for the same cellular technologies, it is even faster than the modem in iPhone 16 Pro series, while using 30 per cent less energy overall.

Also, the iOS 26 update, Apple has introduced the AI-based Adaptive Power Management feature, which promises to improve the battery life of the device.

Once turned on, Adaptive Power can lower screen brightness, limit background activity, and make performance adjustments to conserve power throughout the day. It can also automatically turn on Low Power Mode when the iPhone's battery reaches the 20 per cent mark.

The Adaptive Power feature is turned on by default on all the newly launched iPhone Air, iPhone 17, 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max.

However, despite the battery-saving features, if the user is fully reliant on 5G cellular for internet connectivity to consume multimedia content on OTT platforms or watch too many short videos on social media platforms for hours, the iPhone Air's battery will drain faster.

For such a scenario, Apple has a cool slim power bank exclusively designed for this particular variant called iPhone Air MagSafe Battery (Rs 11,900). It can extend the battery life by another 65 percent.

Also, it supports 20W wired charging. In 30 minutes, it can charge up to 50 per cent of the capacity.

Besides the C1X modem, the iPhone Air boasts of N1, a new Apple-designed wireless networking chip that enables Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 6. In addition to the latest generation of wireless technologies, N1 improves the overall performance and reliability of features like Personal Hotspot and AirDrop.

And, it also supports Crash Detection, which calls pre-listed contacts or emergency responders to seek help and get medical aid as soon as possible.

It also comes with SOS Satellite Connectivity, but for now, is limited to select global regions including the US, New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and some in Europe.

As noted earlier, due to the design limitation, Apple has removed the physical SIM slot. If people want to own the iPhone Air, they have no choice but to switch to e-SIM.

The iPhone Air can support more than eight e-SIMs, but only two e-SIMs can be active at any time. In India, Airtel and Reliance Jio offer e-SIM.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

Photography

The iPhone 17 Air features a 48MP Fusion camera system with sensor-shift optical image stabilisation and is capable of capturing 4K videos.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

Despite having lone sensor, the iPhone Air doesn't disappoint much with the photo quality. Be it day light or the pitch darkness, it takes a pretty good images with nice details and warm colours, which makes particularly the flowers and human face a tad vibrant than they appear to the human eyes.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

There is no ultra wide angle mode, but as you can see the sample photos, it is able to cover vast area of the beach and with good detail.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

It also supports 2X optical zoom with less loss of quality. It can digitally zoom up to 10X. The digitally zoomed picture quality are decent.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample with 2X zoom.

Like on other iPhone models, the video is of top-notch quality, way better than some premium Android handsets.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

Also, it takes pretty nice portrait images with bokeh effect in the background. It supports six styles--natural light, studio light, contour light, stage light, stage light mono and high-key light mono.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample with portrait mode on.

The iPhone Air also captures pretty nice close-up photos with minute details.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

On the front, it houses an all-new 18MP centre-centre stage front camera. It supports a wider field of view and higher resolution — up to 18MP for photos — to capture more detail. The picture quality is really good.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

An interesting aspect of the selfie camera is that users can also capture group photos and videos in portrait or landscape while holding their iPhone vertically.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

While taking group selfies, Centre Stage feature of the iPhone uses AI to automatically expand the field of view and rotate from portrait to landscape to include everyone in the frame.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

The picture quality of selfies is really good. The Centre Stage front camera also enables ultra-stabilised video in 4K HDR, and users can now record on the front and rear cameras simultaneously with Dual Capture mode.

Apple iPhone Air's camera sample.

Final take-away

The iPhone Air delivers top-notch performance, on par with the Pro model, but its sleek design compromises on battery life and the lack of additional camera sensors is sorely missed.

Apple iPhone Air.

The iPhone Air is available in space black, cloud white, light gold, and sky blue, starting with 256GB storage, 512GB and 1TB options— for Rs 1,19,900, Rs 1,39,900 and Rs 1,59,900, respectively.

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