Review Summary
Expert Rating
Apple introduced a new model this year — the iPhone Air, launched alongside the iPhone 17 series. The handset sits between the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro, replacing the ‘Plus’ variant that debuted a couple of years ago. However, the iPhone Air in no way bridges the gap between the regular iPhone 17 and the Pro model. Instead, it carves out an identity of its own by being the slimmest iPhone ever.
That remarkable thinness didn’t just appear out of thin air, though. To achieve its featherlight design, Apple had to modify a few aspects, including reducing the versatility of the camera setup, which is typically found in this price range. But in return, you get a phone that feels every bit as elegant and refined as its name suggests. So, do the trade-offs justify its Rs 1,19,900 price tag? Let’s find out in this iPhone Air review.
Table of Contents
Verdict
The iPhone Air is designed for users who want their smartphone to make a style statement, even if it comes at the cost of aspects like battery life and camera versatility for its price. Its ultra-slim design stands out, while the lightweight body makes it incredibly easy to handle. This is complemented by the ProMotion display, which adds a smooth, fluid, and enjoyable feel to every interaction.
Oh, so slim!
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — the iPhone Air truly feels like a breath of fresh air. Its ultra-slim profile, measuring just 5.6mm (excluding the camera plateau), makes it the thinnest smartphone in India, beating the previous best of 5.8mm set by the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge. If I talk strictly about Apple smartphones, the iPhone Air is slimmer than the iconic iPhone 6, which measured 6.9mm. That alone should tell you how much thicker iPhones have become over the years. In fact, the current iPhone 17 Pro models are Apple’s chunkiest yet, with a thickness of 8.75mm.
However, it wasn’t the sleekness that amazed me. It didn’t feel any different to hold or carry than a regular-sized smartphone, something I’ve explored in a separate article on the iPhone Air’s form factor. It’s the weight of the device that really stands out. The handset weighs just 161 grams, making it the lightest iPhone since the now-discontinued 5.4-inch mini series. The iPhone Air has managed to offer a light form factor while offering a tall 6.5-inch display. This makes it easy to carry and hold the device for prolonged use. Moreover, you don’t feel the presence of the device in your pocket as much as some of the new-age flagships.
Despite its slim and lightweight form factor, the iPhone Air manages to accommodate all the necessary ports and buttons, including the Camera Control, which sits flush in the frame. I wonder how many people will use the button, given the smartphone’s limited camera versatility. It can be customised, though, as I did for the QR scanner, which has been incredibly handy for making UPI payments.
Light, but tough
Apple has used a titanium frame for the iPhone Air, giving its slim body impressive durability. I even tried bending it, but it barely flexed. Despite my habit of keeping my phone in my back pocket, the phone held its shape without issue. The new Ceramic Shield Glass 2 on the front and back stayed scratch-free during my testing, even without a case, though I didn’t have the heart to drop it. The phone also carries an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance.
While the flat edges make the device comfortable to hold, its glossy finish tends to attract fingerprints. And given its lightweight form factor, it can easily slip out of your hand. Therefore, I’d recommend investing in a good-quality case, which will not only protect the phone but also help maintain its pristine looks. The case also proves useful if you often type on the device while it rests on a table, as it prevents wobbling caused by the protruding camera lens.
The lens sits on a redesigned plateau that Apple says helps achieve the iPhone Air’s slim profile. While it resembles the Pixel 10’s visor, this section houses key hardware like the A19 Pro chipset, freeing up the rest of the body for the battery. Apple has also smoothly blended the plateau into the glass back, making it comfortable to hold without any sharp edges.
Engineering mastery aside, the new camera bar brings a refreshing new perspective to the iPhone’s design. Kudos, Apple, for pulling it off so elegantly.
Hidden SIM
To achieve the slim form factor and maximise battery capacity, Apple had to remove the physical SIM card slot from the smartphone. The iPhone Air is the first of its kind in India to be eSIM-only. If you are new to the concept, the eSIM is a digital version of the physical SIM, embedded into the smartphone. All mobile carriers, including Airtel, Jio, and Vi, provide eSIM support in the country and existing users can convert their physical SIM to eSIM from the comfort of their homes. It works just as well as a physical SIM card. I didn’t experience any network issues after switching from a physical SIM to an eSIM in my day-to-day usage. The signal strength remained strong in most scenarios, with 5G-level upload and download speeds.
While it’s touted to be safer than a physical SIM, setting it up is a bit of a process. It requires the phone to be connected to a Wi-Fi network and generate a request online via the carrier’s app or customer care portal. The process can take a couple of hours, and during the first 24 hours, SMS services remain suspended, meaning you won’t be able to send or receive messages to verify your number for UPI and other services. If you frequently switch between smartphones, switching to an eSIM could be an issue.
Pro-grade display, not-so-great audio
This year’s iPhone lineup doesn’t differentiate in viewing experience. All models, including the iPhone Air, feature a Super Retina XDR Always-on OLED display, with Dynamic Island, ProMotion technology for adaptive 120Hz refresh rate, and HDR support. The displays can also reach equally bright levels, with a maximum of 3,000 nits, ensuring easy legibility of content outdoors under direct sunlight.
The only differences lie in the display size and, naturally, the resolution. The iPhone Air sports a 6.5-inch panel with a resolution of 2,736 × 1,260 pixels, but with the same pixel density of 460 ppi, the visual quality remains unchanged. The screen delivers crisp, vibrant visuals with accurate colours, thanks to Apple’s True Tone technology. Moreover, HDR support ensures deep blacks, adding real depth to movies with dark visuals, such as the Sinners, with good depth.
Audio on the iPhone Air isn’t so impressive. To achieve its ultra-slim profile, Apple had to cut a few corners, which included the removal of the bottom-firing speaker. What you’re left with is a single top speaker hidden behind the earpiece, which lacks both loudness and depth. While Apple’s haptic engine remains impressively strong and delivers sharp feedback for notifications, the overall audio experience is less than amazing.
Whether it’s a voice or conference call, or even casual audio and video playback, the sound can’t really fill the room, even in a quiet environment. This is arguably the iPhone Air’s weakest link. That said, if you’re someone who rarely uses the phone’s loudspeaker and instead relies on earphones or headphones, this might not bother you as much.
Promising performance, with a small hiccup
At the heart of the iPhone Air is Apple’s new A19 Pro chipset, also found in the iPhone 17 Pro models. The Air, however, comes with five GPU cores instead of six and lacks the vapour chamber cooling system. For most users, this won’t be an issue, as the iPhone Air is designed more as a lifestyle device than a performance powerhouse. Regardless, the device has enough features to deliver a smooth performance for most daily usage. On the AnTuTu benchmarking app, the handset scored 20,67,200, which might be lower than iPhone 17 and 17 Pro scores, but is still quite impressive.
The Geekbench performance of the smartphone remained on par with its sibling, scoring 3,729 and 9,481 in the single-core and multi-core tests, respectively. This may make it the fastest chipset from Apple, but it lags behind Qualcomm’s new-age flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC. Nevertheless, the iPhone Air performed extremely well on the 3DMark stress test, dropping to 82.50 percent from its peak performance.
We put the iPhone Air through our usual gaming tests under the same conditions and settings used for other smartphones. The device heated up by an average of 2.2 degrees Celsius after 30 minutes of gameplay in BGMI, Call of Duty: Mobile, and Real Racing 3. The smartphone handled the games smoothly, with no noticeable stutters during these short sessions. During long gaming sessions or heavy multitasking, the iPhone Air warmed up slightly around the camera plateau. Delhi’s mild weather at the time of writing likely helped too.
While Apple doesn’t officially disclose RAM details for its iPhones, reports suggest that the iPhone Air is equipped with 12GB of memory. The smartphone is available in three storage variants: 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB, and all variants support USB 2.0 data transfer speeds through the USB Type-C port. This does feel a bit underwhelming, but given the device doesn’t target creators specifically, it’s hardly a deal-breaker.
Good battery life for specific users
The iPhone Air packs a 3,149mAh battery, which is modest for a phone with a 6.5-inch display. I’ve been using it for about a week, and it hasn’t given me any battery anxiety, mainly because I’ve had easy access to charging throughout the day, whether commuting or at the desk. If your daily routine allows similar charging convenience, the battery life shouldn’t be a concern.
Apple seems to have optimised the iPhone Air’s battery well. Despite its smaller cell, it lasted an impressive 9 hours and 38 minutes in our YouTube loop test, about 70 minutes longer than the iPhone 17 with its larger 3,640mAh battery. That gives a fair idea of its intended use: moderate, not intensive. In our gaming test, the phone drained 22 percent in 90 minutes, higher than both the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro Max.
For power users, Apple has launched the iPhone Air Battery, a MagSafe power bank, which blends in well with the Air’s chassis. The power bank is sleek, minimalistic, and carries the same battery capacity as that of the iPhone Air. Nevertheless, the power bank won’t charge your smartphone to its fullest capacity due to the loss of charge that wireless charging entails. At max, it will provide your iPhone Air roughly 60-70 percent juice, which is good for another 4 to 5 hours of backup on regular usage, before running out of battery.
The MagSafe power bank, sold separately for Rs 11,900, charges the iPhone Air in about two hours at a maximum of 20W (when the power bank is connected to an adapter while attached to the Air). It attaches magnetically to the back for on-the-go use, but adds noticeable bulk, making the Air thicker and compromising its signature slim design.
The wired charging, also capped at 20W, feels like the more practical option if you’d rather avoid the extra bulk of the magnetic power bank. In our tests, the iPhone Air charged from 20 per cent to full in about an hour and a half, noticeably slower than most modern flagships, particularly those from Chinese OEMs. And, as is now customary with Apple, you’ll need to purchase the charger separately.
Flagship-level results, minimalistic camera setup
The iPhone Air’s camera design is as straightforward as it can get. The handset features a 48MP rear camera, making it the first Apple flagship since the iPhone 8 (2017) to sport a single-lens setup. However, Apple claims that the iPhone Air effectively offers two advanced cameras, primary and telephoto, in one, thanks to its Fusion technology. Introduced last year, this technology enables “optical-level zoom” by natively capturing 12MP images at 2x cropped from the 48MP lens to offer better clarity and sharpness compared to the digital zoom, which merely enlarges pixels.
While it’s certainly a clever implementation, I wouldn’t call it a full replacement for a dedicated telephoto lens. The latter still rules for zoomed shots, but it can take some space in the smartphone, making it less ideal for a smartphone as slim as the iPhone Air.
That said, most users in everyday use are unlikely to notice the missing telephoto and ultrawide lenses on the smartphone. The primary camera is capable of delivering results that are nothing short of flagship-grade. Whether in daylight or low light, images come out vibrant, with natural colour reproduction, excellent dynamic range, and plenty of fine detail. Even at 2x zoom, shots remain sharp and visually pleasing, with only a slight drop in quality. The absence of ultrawide and telephoto lenses only becomes noticeable when travelling or attending events like concerts, where capturing a wide scene or a zoomed-in shot of a performer on stage is required.
Turning to the selfie camera, the device brings notable improvements in both quality and usability. The handset features a new 18MP square sensor – the same as the iPhone 17 series, paired with Centre Stage, which automatically adjusts the frame between vertical and horizontal orientations depending on the number of people in view. You can also enable Centre Stage manually with a tap on the screen. This feels more natural for taking selfies with the shutter button conveniently placed within thumb’s reach, and let’s be honest, holding the phone vertically feels far more secure than horizontally.
Centre Stage now works for both photo and video modes. Taking a cue from Android rivals, Apple has also introduced ‘Dual Capture’, which lets you record using both the front and rear cameras simultaneously. It’s a thoughtful addition for creators who want to film their reactions while capturing a scenic view or unboxing a product with the rear camera, something that previously required setting up a second device. You can even move the front camera feed to any corner of the screen while recording, which is a neat touch, though I wish that repositioning movement wasn’t visible in the final video.
The video quality from both front and rear cameras is quite stable, with good exposure and balanced colour tones. The handset supports up to 4K video recording at 60fps from both front and rear cameras.
Daylight
The iPhone Air produces more accurate and natural colours compared to the Pixel 10 Pro, which tends to boost saturation from its 50MP primary sensor. Both phones capture a similar level of detail, though the Pixel offers slightly better dynamic range, which could be due to its tendency to oversaturate tones, giving images a more dramatic, social media–ready appearance rather than a true-to-life one.
Portrait
In portraits too, the iPhone Air leans towards a natural look, with balanced skin tones and good separation of subjects from the background. The Pixel 10 Pro, on the contrary, oversharpens images and struggles with edge detection and accurately portraying skin tones.
Selfie
The iPhone Air again outshines with true-to-life skin tones, but the Pixel 10 Pro delivers superior facial details and good exposure to background details. The dynamic range is neck and neck on both smartphones.
Lowlight (night mode)
Both smartphones are equally capable of handling light flares in low-light conditions. The iPhone Air delivers more realistic images, but doesn’t offer images as crisp as the Pixel 10 Pro.
Redesigned software, with a few kinks
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, iOS 26, which succeeds iOS 18, is the latest operating system for iPhones. Apple has changed its naming convention to align the software version with the calendar year. But that’s not the only change the update brings; you can read all about the new features in our detailed iOS 26 beta hands-on article.
My experience with the stable version of the software has remained a mixed bag. Several Apple Intelligence features, such as Call Screening and Hold Assist, stand out for their usefulness. The former uses AI to handle calls from unknown numbers, while the latter alerts you when the caller is ready to resume the conversation. The redesigned interfaces across core apps like Camera, iMessage, Photos, and CarPlay also feel cleaner. Moreover, the debut of the Preview feature allows iPhone users to edit images or a PDF file in the way they do on a Mac. The feature can even auto-fill forms using information already stored on your iPhone, a small but genuinely time-saving touch.
OS 26’s Liquid Glass design gives iPhones a fresh look, though I wasn’t a big fan. Users can revert to a non-transparent interface with solid-coloured apps. The update also brings a steeper learning curve, especially in the Camera app, which now uses a six-dot icon instead of the old arrow-down – a simpler interface, but not without quirks.
At first glance, it appears as though there are only two shooting modes: Photo and Video. Seasoned iPhone users or those coming from other high-end smartphones will know to explore further, but for newcomers, discovering the additional modes isn’t immediately intuitive. Apple could have made this clearer by subtly surfacing the hidden modes, perhaps as faint icons or shadows, to help users recognise their presence without needing to tap around blindly. Moreover, I also encountered a few bugs here and there. Apple is known for the timely rollout of its firmware, and hopefully, it will address these bugs in future updates.
Final verdict
The iPhone Air may not have everything going for it, but it stands out where it matters most. The handset is incredibly slim, strikingly light, and beautifully engineered, setting a new benchmark for premium smartphone craftsmanship. But it is not the only slim smartphone out there from a major OEM. Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge, launched at a starting price of Rs 1,09,999, is just 0.2mm thicker and 2 grams heavier than the iPhone Air and offers dual speakers, dual camera setup, a bigger battery, and faster charging speeds.
These misses make the iPhone Air less convincing. However, when it comes to everyday usage, you don’t feel the smartphone lacking, except for the audio. Its titanium frame feels remarkably sturdy despite the featherlight build, and the 6.5-inch OLED display delivers true flagship-level quality. The A19 Pro chipset ensures smooth performance, while the 48MP primary camera consistently produces excellent results. Moreover, Apple’s software refinements in iOS 26, including Preview editing and Dual Capture, add thoughtful, practical touches, even if a few rough edges remain.
Ultimately, the iPhone Air is best suited for those who prioritise design, lightness, and everyday practicality over raw performance or camera versatility. It’s a device that redefines how premium a minimalist iPhone can feel, setting the tone for more refinement in future iterations.
Editor’s rating: 8.1 / 10
Reasons to buy
- Ultra-slim and lightweight design with a premium titanium frame.
- Flagship-grade 6.5-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display for an impressive viewing experience.
- Smooth performance powered by A19 Pro chip.
- Excellent main camera with accurate colour reproduction.
Reasons not to buy
- Lacks versatility in camera lenses.
- Single speaker lacks depth and loudness.
- Pricey for what it sacrifices at Rs 1,19,900.