We’ve already seen a couple of really slim smartphones this year, but that doesn’t affect the oohs and the aahs elicited by the new iPhone Air. It’s a svelte, sexy device, and nothing can take away from the fact that it’s the thinnest iPhone to date. While I can’t really say it blew me away, thanks to some of the other slim phones that have entered the fray in recent times, the iPhone Air is still a bona fide marvel of engineering, and I can already see it becoming a popular option among iPhone users.
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Design and build: slim, sleek, svelte and sexy. Did I say thin?
At 5.6mm thick, the iPhone Air, which likely draws inspiration from the naming convention of the MacBook Air, is also quite lightweight. It weighs a mere 165g. The thin and lightweight build, however, doesn’t mean the phone is light on durability.
Thanks to the Grade 5 titanium frame, Ceramic Shield 2 on the front, and Ceramic Shield on the back, the iPhone Air promises long-term durability. There’s IP68 rating too, so exposure to dust and water shouldn’t be an issue. Coming back to the slimness, the phone is so slim that it’s barely thicker than the width of the Type-C port at the bottom. At the back, there’s a horizontal plateau that holds a single camera lens on the left. This bump, in fact, hides many of the core components, including the front and rear cameras, the speaker and the silicon.
The area in the flat slab below that has been kept for the battery, and to maximise battery capacity, the physical SIM slot has been nixed. This means that the iPhone Air is e-SIM only, so that’s something to keep in mind if you’re considering one, especially if you’re someone who switches their SIM between different phones often. You still get the Camera Control on the right edge, and the customisable Action button on the left, above the volume keys.
The goodies
The impossibly slim chassis notwithstanding, the iPhone Air isn’t low on grunt. It gets the new 3nm A19 Pro SoC, the same as the iPhone 17 Pro models. Also along for the ride is Apple’s new C1X modem, plus the N1 chip which enables wireless communication covering Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 etc. Basically, with the A19 Pro, C1X and N1, all of iPhone Air’s silicon comes from Apple. Other goodies include the 3,000-nit, 120Hz, 6.5-inch AMOLED display (what Apple likes to call “Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion”), and the 18MP front camera with Center Stage. Seeing the Center Stage feature in action on the iPhone Air, it seems super cool and quite handy to have. It’s being called akin to having four cameras in one — portrait, portrait ultrawide, landscape, and landscape ultrawide — and the phone switches between them automatically based on the number of people in the frame.
The stuff that needs closer inspection
While the phone looks great and makes big promises, there are aspects that do need closer inspection. The battery life, for instance. Apple is promising all-day battery life, but slim phones have slim batteries… so that’s something we’d need to check. Another aspect is the camera. The 48MP Fusion camera system promises users the equivalent of four lenses in their pocket, and optical quality 2X telephoto, too. It remains to be seen if it can deliver great results in real life, and we’ll have more on this soon.
In sum
The iPhone Air comes like a breath of fresh air, grabbing the spotlight in Apple’s 17 series lineup. The entire lineup, in fact, boasts significant upgrades, so iPhone lovers have a lot to look forward to this time. The iPhone Air, as I said before, promises to be a popular option, and that’s despite its price tag that starts from Rs 1,19,900. You can insert your favourite kidney-related pun here, but the iPhone Air, for me, comes as a potential showstopper in a lineup of chic models, each with its own standout points. Watch this space for more.
