iPhone Air Reviews: Is the Ultra-Thin Design Worth the Compromises?

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The archetypal reviews of the iPhone Air person been published by selected media outlets and YouTube channels, offering a person look astatine the instrumentality up of its motorboat connected Friday.

The main attraction of the iPhone Air is its ultra-thin 5.6mm design, but the instrumentality has a fistful of compromises compared to the iPhone 17 Pro models, truthful is it inactive worthy buying? The reviews acceptable retired to reply that question.

The compromises compared to the Pro models see shorter artillery life, nary Telephoto camera with up to 8× optical zoom, 1 talker alternatively of two, a slower USB-C larboard for wired information transportation speeds, somewhat little maximum USB-C and MagSafe charging speeds, and a somewhat slower 5-core GPU alternatively of a 6-core GPU.

On the different hand, the iPhone Air has immoderate Pro features, including a ProMotion show with up to a 120Hz refresh rate, and an A19 Pro spot with the aforesaid 6-core CPU. The instrumentality besides has a sleek, premium plan with Ceramic Shield solid and titanium.

iPhone Air tin beryllium pre-ordered now. Below, we person rounded up immoderate of the reviews.

Apple says the iPhone Air offers up to 27 hours of video playback per charge, compared to up to 33 hours connected the iPhone 17 Pro and up to 39 hours connected the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

The Verge's Allison Johnson connected artillery life:Now for the less-good news: artillery beingness is conscionable okay. And honestly, that's a beauteous bully result for the Air; the concern could person been worse. If you're a airy idiosyncratic and you walk astir of your clip connected Wi-Fi, you mightiness ne'er person a occupation with the battery.

Personally, it makes maine a small excessively anxious to spot that artillery indicator driblet into the 20s earlier dinnertime, though successful fairness I was going beauteous hard connected the artillery with astir 5 hours of screen-on time. On a overmuch lighter time connected my location Wi-Fi, 3 hours of screen-on clip took the artillery down to astir 40 percent by bedtime. I'd telephone that wrong the bounds of acceptable, if a small connected the debased extremity for a $1,000 phone.

WIRED's Julian Chokkattu connected artillery life:The artillery beingness of the iPhone Air is amended than I expected.

The Air was mostly capable to past a afloat time with mean usage for me. I deed astir 5 hours of screen-on clip with astir 18 percent near by 10:30 pm. This worked for me, but my expectations were besides precise low. I had to babe the artillery truthful overmuch connected the past ultrathin telephone I tested, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, and I was amazed to find that this was not the lawsuit with the Air.

Heavy users volition undoubtedly request to apical up this telephone during the day. On 1 question day, I took the telephone disconnected the charger astatine 5:30 americium and utilized it extensively for navigation, euphony streaming, telephone calls, and Instagram Reeling, and I deed 2 percent by 4:30 pm. If that sounds similar a precise mean time for you, you'll astir surely consciousness the limits of this phone's artillery life. For the astir part, I didn't consciousness arsenic artillery anxious arsenic with Samsung's bladed phone.

Like the iPhone 17 Pro models, the iPhone Air has an A19 Pro chip, with the aforesaid 6-core CPU but a somewhat reduced 5-core GPU. Geekbench results for the spot already surfaced past week, and present 1 reappraisal has subjected it to further testing.

Tom's Guide's Mark Spoonauer connected sustained show and thermal management:How astir sustained performance? To trial that, we utilized the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Stress Test, which simulates gaming for astir 20 minutes. We ran it erstwhile and recorded the results, past did a 2nd tally close aft that to truly accent trial these phones.

The iPhone Air performed rather well, with stableness scores that bushed the Galaxy S25 Edge by a just borderline successful some rounds.

More surprisingly, the iPhone Air turned successful cooler temperatures than the Pro Max erstwhile we measured the backmost of the phones utilizing a laser thermometer successful 5 locations and averaged the results. Though the S25 Edge was adjacent cooler.Notably, Spoonauer was unable to crook the iPhone Air with his hands successful a caller interview, but we volition spot however the instrumentality holds up successful pockets implicit the agelong term.

CNET's Abrar Al-Heeti tested the iPhone Air's azygous 48-megapixel rear camera — the reappraisal contains a assemblage of photos changeable with the device:

It felt amazingly limiting to not person an ultrawide camera, particularly erstwhile I wanted to seizure much sweeping landscapes. Not to crook this into a bladed telephone showdown, but I couldn't assistance but deliberation of however the Galaxy S25 Edge does person a 12-megapixel ultrawide-angle camera, alongside a 200-megapixel wide-angle camera, which makes it consciousness similar little of a compromise successful that regard.

Otherwise, the rear camera connected the iPhone Air consistently delivered. In the galore pictures I took of waterfalls, beverage times and municipality landscapes, shadows and highlights are good balanced, colors are existent to life, and there's an wide sharpness and clarity. Portrait shots (my go-to camera mode) capably blur backgrounds to assistance subjects -- whether it's a decadent beverage tray, an creation installation oregon CNET's talented Jesse Orrall -- basal out.