If you chase power, bigger screens, and better cameras, but what if Apple told you that the future isn’t more, it is less? This is the iPhone Air. So light that it almost feels like it’s missing something, until you realize maybe that is the point, because this time Apple didn’t just build a phone, they’ve built luxury.
So, the only question is, besides the single camera, how much had to be taken away to make this phone feel this good? And the answer might surprise you, because while most people are complaining about the compromises, most of you might be ignoring how amazingly unique this phone is.
[Watch the full video on YouTube here]
Design & Build
I chose to go with the Cloud White color, and it immediately gave me that nice, clean, minimalistic vibe to the phone. This is only 5.5 mm thin and it weighs about 165 grams.
And as someone who uses the Pro Max and the Android Ultras, I just question one thing, like, how?
Well, it turns out that Apple had to rearrange all of the components to this new Camera Plateau on top, which holds majority of the components, which unintentionally also makes the phone less wobbly on the desk, making this a very useful feature if you find yourself typing on the phone on the table, while at work, at home, or while having your meal.
Speaking of being useful, a forgotten feature which I found also useful in this thinner form factor is this, the Camera Control as it’s nicely placed at where your thumb is. So, you can easily swipe and change between the different focal lengths including the camera selfie over here too.
But to give this phone proper strength, Apple has kept the sides Titanium, because Titanium is a lot stronger than the Aluminum that is available on the Pro phones.
With this new Ceramic Shield 2, like the other new iPhone 17 series, this has up to 3x the scratch resistance. And if you ever doubted Apple on this durability proof, well, once again, fellow YouTuber Zack from JerryRigEverything did those tests like scratch levels and even tried to bend the phone without any luck to the point where he had to use a machine to do it. And he only bent at a max of 98 kg. And mind you, the screen still worked then. So, unless you have “buns of steel”, you can never bend this.
But durability aside, when you use this phone daily, every single time when you pick this phone up, I promise you, at least for the first 4 seconds, you’ll be like, “Oh, damn. This feels futuristic.” It almost feels like you’re holding a glass panel. But at the same time, the sides do not feel sharp at all, making this one of the most comfortable phones to use when it comes to scrolling or typing.
And Apple has also introduced two accessories alongside the iPhone, which is this, the iPhone Air Bumper that gives you the added protection on the phone’s frame. And there’s also the usual transparent case too.
And if you’re one of those people who doesn’t have deep pockets physically or any pockets at all, you can use this, which is Apple’s official Crossbody Strap, which also works with other iPhone cases too.
So, yes, all in all, the iPhone Air doesn’t just look like a phone, it looks like a piece of jewelry.
Display
But to add to the overall experience is this, the flat 6.5″ 120 Hz ProMotion display sitting right between the 6.3″ iPhone 17 and the 6.9″ iPhone 17 Pro Max with 3,000 nits of peak brightness and an anti-reflective coating.
When Apple says that this is an anti-reflective coating, don’t get confused with a matte-like finish, because it does reduce the glare on the phone, but not like a typical matte finish. However, I have to say that this new glass did make the phone nicer to touch and scroll where it literally felt smooth as well, besides the overall software.
But of course, you will experience some fingerprints. So, if you want to reduce that from happening, you can get dbrand’s Prism 2.0 screen protector because not only it has an oleophobic coating to help get rid of the fingerprints, but it also adds the extra layer of scratch protection.
It is ultra precise and best of all, you don’t need an army to put this on your phone as it’s super easy to install. So, it is “idiot-proof” too, because if you screw it up, dbrand gives you two, just in case. So, head to dbrand.com/adamlobotv to get this and all of the other accessories from them too.
This screen is also brighter than last year’s Pro models. So, the videos are brighter and sharper with HDR playback as well. But while the display is good, the overall content experience might not be the same because this has a single speaker on top where the earpiece is located. It is loud enough but not so audible. Not enough to justify the long content viewing.
So while TikTok and Instagram Reels wouldn’t bother you as much since you’re viewing that on a vertical aspect ratio, but you surely notice the lack of volume in YouTube or Netflix, where I feel that people who’ll be watching videos on this phone will be watching this phone on a vertical content consumption compared to landscape. So that is the overall target market and if you were to get this phone that would be your best way of watching videos on this phone.
So yes, this single speaker will be something that you will get used to, or you know, you can just press your ear on the top speaker to pretend it’s surround sound, or you can even get the AirPods to “fix” this single speaker, because most people who buy this phone probably already have one.
But on a brighter side, literally, this phone is easily visible and readable outdoors as well. While the previous iPhones used to reduce the brightness when seeing the sun, this one doesn’t reduce brightness at all. Since this is also a ProMotion display, and this is also thanks to the processor, which I’ll come into next.
And this also supports Always-On display too, which usually comes turned on by default on other iPhones. But this was shipped with Always-On display turned off, maybe to save the battery. But me being me, I turn it on to see how well the battery life is, which I’ll tell you how much of a screen on time that I got on this very soon. But yes, in short, the display is bright, boosted, and very beautiful.
Performance
And for the performance part. This almost, almost shares the processor as the iPhone 17 Pros. The reason why I said almost is because this has one less GPU compared to the Pros. Surprising, right? But to be honest, that won’t make any difference, because everyday apps and animations are good and smooth. The UI is also stable with the official iOS 26 release and with the recent updates too.
But sometimes the strength becomes the weaknesses, because this is a very slim phone and while playing games on this felt really nice on the hands, like playing on a piece of glass, and there’s not even a drop of performance, but at about 15 minutes the phone did become very hot from continuous gameplay.
This was specifically at the plateau area, and this was tested on the highest graphic settings at 120 fps with motion blur turned on. So, you’ll need to bring down the settings to the high settings, not to make the phone very warm, especially during long gameplay.
But the good news is that there’s no battery drain issues at all when playing games on this particular phone. And speaking of battery, let’s talk about that next.
Battery
This has a 3,149 mAh battery. And to achieve this number, the iPhone Air is only an “eSIM only” unlike the rest of the models which is available globally which has a SIM card variant for that. So yes, so this iPhone Air has no physical SIM card option at all. So keep that in mind when buying this phone.
When I was using this phone daily, I got an average of 3 hours and 43 minutes and a max of 4 hours of screen on time, which is almost a day of use.
So with this, you might question whether or not Apple should have just gone the other way by choosing the Silicon Carbon battery tech since most Chinese brands are coming out with crazy numbers. So why is Apple not innovating over here?
Well, this time I would like to back Apple over here, because unlike Xiaomi, Apple doesn’t release dozens of phones each year. Because while saying that, the number of units that iPhone sells each year, that is way more than Xiaomi. So Apple can’t risk having something which is new on their phone and will pick the tech which is most reliable even if it comes with a cost like the battery life in this particular case.
So with that, Apple and even Samsung is still choosing to pick the old but reliable Lithium-ion battery, and Apple, while already losing the market share recently won’t take such risk.
And then this phone also does support Fast Charging this time, getting 50% battery in just 20 minutes with the Dynamic Power Adapter, which is still currently not available in Malaysia yet, but you could expect this to charge up to 50% in about 25 minutes using a MacBook charger.
Then Apple also released a MagSafe battery pack specifically for the iPhone Air. What’s interesting is that this also has the same battery size as the phone, but it would not charge the phone full, but up to about 65% battery. Why? Because wireless tech produces a lot of heat and heat means that the battery is lost in the process of transferring the battery’s juice.
Camera
And finally, let’s talk about the singular camera and the front camera as well, which is a 48 MP wide camera at the back and a new 18 MP square on the front, which shoots vertically and horizontally for the front camera, similar to the other iPhone 17 models.
But as for the back camera, even though it’s a single camera, the output is very Apple-like. If you’re not sure what I mean by that, well, if you’re someone who just wants to take a photo without going deep into editing, this is it.
Main Lens
The daytime photos were amazing, both for the 1x and the 2x zoom. It can reach up to a max 10x zoom, which I wouldn’t recommend using. So, I would just use the max 5x zoom over here to get the best quality photos, because this phone is really intended for those people who are not probably going to be zooming more than 5x.
Portrait Mode
When it comes to portrait mode, this was really great because Apple has done wonders with the software and the image processing. The edge detection is still very much on point even with a single camera.
But if you’re someone who shoots landscapes and greeneries, you won’t be able to get that ultra wide shots obviously due to the lack of the ultra wide lens.
Front Camera
And the front camera is really great because the portrait selfie looks as good as the iPhone 17 or even the Pro models where the highlights are very well managed and skin tones look very natural too.
In case you miss Apple’s keynote or our review of the iPhone 17, this new front camera automatically shifts to the Center Stage which needs to be turned on in the camera app too. So it goes wider automatically if it detects there’s more people in the frame or if you wish you can also do it manually every single time.
And I have to say that the images on this ultra wide selfie did look better and more consistent compared to when I was reviewing the base iPhone 17, probably because of the Pro chipset.
Main Lens (Night)
Then the nighttime photos were also the same story as the daytime photos where the best would be only going up to 5x, but like the iPhone 17, if there are lights there is the possibility of lens glare or lens flare, so keep that in mind.
Portrait Mode (Night)
Then the portrait mode at night was also the same case looking really good too for humans, objects and food too.
So was the nighttime selfie portrait. The nighttime selfie portrait also looks as good as the daytime shots and the consistency of the colors from the regular to the ultra wide selfie was better compared to the baseline iPhone 17 during the night.
Video Recording
[Check out sample video footage on my YouTube video]
Then video wise, this can shoot up to 4K 60 fps. But one thing to note is that the Cinematic mode is not available on the iPhone Air. So keep that in mind if you love that on the previous iPhones or any Android phones which have that.
Both the 1x and the 2x video look great as expected with amazing dynamic range and exposure balance as well. And while the 2x video recording was great, not so much for the 5x zoom onwards even though there’s an option to go up to 6x zoom, so keep that in mind.
Stabilization wise for the video on 1x was gimbal-like and the 2x stabilization was also great too but again don’t go beyond 5x video zoom.
Then as for the front video quality it looked really nice with great stabilization too. Dynamic range was seriously awesome. Even with me going against the sun, it still captured the exposure very well. And the same could be said for the wide-angle selfie videos as well, both for the dynamic range and the overall video quality and stabilization as well.
Video Recording (Night)
Then as for the nighttime video, it also looks great. But once again, keep a lookout on the lens flare if you’re shooting anything against a light or any light fixtures as that is more prominent at 2x zoom. But quality-wise, I wouldn’t recommend beyond 2x zoom.
The video stabilization at night for the 1x looks great, but not so much on the 2x onwards. The night selfie video is also decent at night with great stabilization, and so was the wide-angle ones too.
[Check out my YouTube video for a VLOG test]
Conclusion
So, what is the conclusion? Well, this iPhone Air bends, pun not intended, towards luxury rather than functionality.
But of course, this phone is not for everyone. And just like another fellow tech YouTuber, Jason Smashpop said, it’s the phone that the boss from “The Devil Wears Prada” would carry – a phone that you only need for a quick photo of your food, take a bunch of selfies and wefies as well, with a brand new experience of owning an actual iPhone.
So yes, the iPhone is back!
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