iPhone Air review: Apple’s cutting-edge is a slimline peek at the future of iPhone

The iPhone Air has to be seen — and held — to be believed. A brand new form factor in Apple’s smartphone lineup, it puts the Cupertino company’s best-selling product on a crash diet, but without leaving it underpowered.

Joining the ranks of the MacBook Air and iPad Air in the impossibly-thin stable, it shows Apple’s design and engineering teams flexing their muscles and, sitting between an equally good entry-level iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max in this year’s lineup, gives Apple fans a real head scratcher in terms of what device to opt for.

The iPhone Air will turn heads, and offers some of the industrial design magic that Apple’s smartphones have lacked of late — but it does come with some notable, inevitable concessions necessitated by that super-slim design.

iPhone Air: In short…

• Ultra-Thin and Lightweight Design: Just 5.6mm thick at its thinnest point
• Pro-Level Performance: A19 Pro chip, despite the svelte frame
• Durable build: Stress tested against bends and drops with tough materials used throughout
• Solid battery: Enough juice to see you through a day… just
• The best selfie camera system ever: Center Stage will make selfies easier to take and less awkward to be in
• Pricing and availability: Starting at £999 ($999) for 256GB, rising to £1,399 ($1,399) for 1TB. On general sale from 19th September

Design: Unbelievably slim, surprisingly durable

Let’s not beat around the bush — the iPhone Air is gorgeous. Ridiculously thin and light, I have to admit to a couple of moments of mild panic with my review unit, as I mistakenly believed I’d lost the phone when it was in my pocket all along — I simply didn’t notice it was there.

5.6mm thick at its thinnest point, and weighing just 165 grams, it’s the most futuristic-feeling phone Apple’s made in years — it feels almost as if it’s floating in your hand. A gorgeous 6.5-inch, 120Hz ProMotion, always-on display adds to that sensation — that a screen this good, on a device this thin, can live in your pocket is quite amazing.

A phone this slim and light will inevitably see people question its durability, but Apple’s claiming that this is the hardiest phone it’s ever built. Made of 3D printed titanium, with a second generation Ceramic Shield coating across its screen (3x better at resisting scratches than previous generations), and a first-gen Ceramic Shield across the back (which Apple says is 4x more resistant to cracks than the glass it previously used on the rear of its mobiles), Apple’s ready to put that claim to the test. It’s invited reviewers to bend the phone and sit on it, and even showed at its Apple Park HQ the ridiculous pressure it puts the iPhone Air under for its automated bend tests. Accidents do happen, but the iPhone Air appears up to the challenge.

If it’s water damage you’re worried about, the iPhone Air is also IP68 rated, meaning it can survive submerged in 6 meters of water for 30 minutes.

Let’s get back to the way it looks, though. You’ll be able to get the iPhone Air in Sky Blue, Light Gold, Cloud White or Space Black. These shades cover the rear of the phone, and extend to the glossy titanium edges of the handset too — with the exception of the white version I tested, which has a silvery metallic finish around the edges.

That rear panel isn’t completely flat. Like most iPhones in recent years, there’s a sizeable camera bump — this time a pill-shaped ‘Plateau’ that extends across the width of the top eighth of the phone. As well as housing the single ‘Fusion’ camera lens, this bump is part of the smart engineering that allows the Air to be so thin elsewhere — inside it is the logic board and other key components, keeping as much space as possible for a slimline battery in the remaining area of the phone.

Around the edges you’ll find five buttons: one for power, a pair for volume up and down controls, the ‘Action’ button which can be programmed as a shortcut for essentially any conceivable control on your iPhone using the Shortcuts app or some preset options, and a Camera Control button that not only acts as shutter control and app launcher, but can also tweak camera settings with swipes and light presses without you needing to reach for the screen.

The Action button and Camera Control buttons are relatively new additions to the iPhone range, and so it wasn’t a given they’d be squeezed into the Air — they’re a welcome, useful sight.

Not that everything makes it through unscathed. As mentioned earlier, there’s only a single rear camera lens here, which means some more complicated shooting modes, such as the macro camera, are now gone. It’s also only a mono speaker on the iPhone Air, housed in that Plateau element — a mono speaker on a premium phone feels quite the step down, even if most people are doing their listening through AirPods and headphones, but the one present here is loud enough for watching a show with at least.

As for charging, that’s handled by either a USB-C connection on the lower edge or by hooking up a magnetic MagSafe charger on the rear. And, as we’ll go into detail on later, there’s no SIM tray here — all network carrier connections are handled via eSIM.

It’s an incredible design, not only in terms of aesthetics, but ingenious industrial design. Pick up an iPhone Air, and you’d better get used to people giving double-takes at your phone.

Performance: Pro power in a slinky frame

Though the reveal of the iPhone Air itself wasn’t a huge surprise (it’d been rumoured for a couple of years ahead of its official unveiling this September), the chipset powering the handset was somewhat unexpected. Rather than going for the new entry-level A19 chipset, Apple has pumped the iPhone Air up with A19 Pro power — the most powerful generation of smartphone CPU and GPU it's ever made.

The A19 Pro used in the Air features a 6-core CPU (two performance, four efficiency), a 5-core GPU (with AI-boosting neural accelerators in each core for 3x faster AI performance compared to A18 Pro), and a 16-core Neural Engine dedicated to AI performance.

What’s this mean in real terms? iPhone Air can handle basically anything you throw at it. Whether you’re playing console-quality games with ray-tracing high-fidelity bells and whistles like Resident Evil Village, or making broadcast-quality video edits on the go, iPhone Air won’t break a sweat.

So your everyday tasks are going to fly along and, when it comes to Apple’s AI ‘Apple Intelligence’ features that are processed on the device, like writing edits and Genmoji image-generating creations, they’ll be taken care of in an instant.

Now, the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max still have the edge here — they have a higher GPU count of six cores, and their thermal design caters better to prolonged intensive tasks, working harder for longer before throttling to keep from overheating. But the iPhone Air’s A19 Pro is whip sharp and super speedy, and a pleasant surprise in terms of performance, given the design. In terms of heat generated, I never noticed the Air getting more than just warm during testing, too, which is reassuring.

The A19 Pro is supported on the networking and connectivity side by a further two new chips: the Apple C1X modem and the N1 wireless networking chip. The C1X shows Apple rapidly improving its homegrown modem, just months after the initial C1 was revealed, with up to 2x faster download and upload speeds depending on your carrier, alongside GPS accuracy improvements. The N1 packs in Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread connectivity, and will boost transfer speeds over AirDrop, and connection quality using iPhone’s Personal Hotspot function.

There’s a focus on efficiency across all the new silicon this year — Apple is keen to stretch as much battery power out of the Air per charge as possible.

Cameras: Center Stage steals the show

A 48MP main camera sits on the back of the iPhone Air, which Apple is calling its ‘Fusion’ camera system. With the iPhone Pro models having a trio of lenses, and even the entry-level iPhone 17 having a pair of lenses, it’s the Air’s weakest point. If you’re used to taking macro close-up or wide-angle shots, that’s not possible here, and the telephoto zoom is limited.

What is present performs well. The camera defaults to a 24MP image (though you can push it to the full 48MP if that extra pro-level detail is needed), and can go from a neutral 1x zoom to crop to 1.1x (28mm) or 1.4x (35mm) for more intimate shots. These can also be set as the default shooting mode. There’s also a 2x Telephoto, which is ‘optical-quality’, with Apple’s Photonic Engine working to boost detail at the higher zoom range.

Apple’s image engine is a solid one — detail on the main lens is high, colour is accurate, and post processing is reserved so as to keep a life-like final image, with Apple perhaps the best of the major smartphone cameras when it comes to recreating accurate skin tones. The ability to dial in personalised ‘Photographic Styles’, creating a signature look for your images, is great too. But the limited lens options on the Air will scupper more adventurous shoots.

Video fares better. You’ve got 4K/60fps Dolby Vision recording on the iPhone Air, with smart image stabilisation at both the 1x and 2x zoom levels, and machine-learning fuelled tricks to reduce wind noise, isolate voices and capture spatial surround sound audio. Higher-end video recording features like ProRes and Genlock are reserved for the Pro models.

But the standout when it comes to photography on the iPhone Air is the new Center Stage front-facing camera. It’s a great idea, and one that I’m surprised hasn’t been used widely in the past. By using a 1:1 square ratio sensor, almost twice the size of those found in previous iPhones, Center Stage lets you more easily take selfie shots in a variety of orientations without having to turn your phone on its side or flip to the rear camera.

Onscreen buttons let you toggle zoom ranges and portrait to landscape angles, while the camera can use AI features to intelligently expand its frame to cater to additional friends and family who are squeezing into the shot. You no longer have to contort your arm to get a good angle, and you end up with more natural, comfortable-looking selfies as a result. It’s a huge improvement, with good detail and vibrancy from the resulting photos. That same Center Stage camera trick also works in FaceTime calls, keeping you positioned in the frame even as you move around in front of the camera.

Finally, there’s a new Dual Capture video recording option making use of both the rear and front-facing cameras at the same time. While the main camera captures action, your reaction is recorded on the front-facing Center Stage camera, with the two shots edited into a single video. It’s not exclusive to the iPhone Air, and we can see content creators and proud parents alike getting a kick out of it on their iPhones.

Connectivity: eSIM vim

With so little internal space to play with, it’s time to say goodbye to the physical SIM card. Apple’s been offering eSIM options (digital SIM cards built directly into your device, activated by a downloadable carrier profile) in its iPhones for a few years now. But the iPhone Air is the first one in the UK that is wholly reliant on the technology.

Set-up is pretty simple — most carriers offer a ‘Quick Transfer’ option that will pull your number over to the iPhone Air as part of the transfer process from an old phone, while those buying an iPhone directly from a network can have the eSIM set up at the point of purchase. Note, however, that if you are restoring from a backup with a physical SIM, transferring that to an eSIM will make the plastic card unusable going forward.

eSIM has lots of benefits, though. Chief among them is flexibility — you can set up as many as eight eSIMs on your phone, meaning you can have separate numbers for business and personal calls, while having international SIM cards in reserve for taking out the sting from roaming data charges. You can also set up a loved one’s phone through Family Sharing with an eSIM, and transferring your number from one device to another is easy, too.

From an internal engineering perspective, removing the physical SIM slot leaves Apple with more room to squeeze in as much battery as possible. Which leads us neatly on to…

Battery: All-day (but don’t push your luck)

Battery life on the iPhone Air is a tricky one to talk about. Apple quotes “all-day” battery life in the marketing for the new handset, which Apple says offers the same 27 hours of video playback as you’d get on an iPhone 16 Pro.

That doesn’t quite tally with my experience — though I was able to get through what I’d consider a standard day of usage for me (some video streaming, some GPS navigation, a few calls, some gaming, web browsing and some photo and video capture), I was happy to be able to get to a plug socket before bedtime.

That’s not to say what Apple’s managed here isn’t impressive — there is simply hardly any physical room in the iPhone Air for a giant battery, and so that ‘Plateau’ camera bump squeezes as much of the internal wizardry together to accommodate as big a battery as possible. Combine that with the C1X modems and A19 Pro chip’s efficiency, and iOS 26’s Adaptive Power management (which will learn your usage habits and tailor power saving features appropriately), and it’s an incredible feat. But I can see more demanding users, and those glued to their social media feeds 24/7, giving that “all-day” battery claim a run for its money.

If battery does concern you, the iPhone Air can be paired with a new bespoke MagSafe portable charger that adds “up to 65 per cent additional charge” to the phone, pushing that video playback stat up to 40 hours. Sold separately, it’s thin and light, but popping it on does kind of defeat the whole point of the slinky Air.

iOS 26: A glassy new look and some smart new features

Apple’s iOS software gets its annual update in time for the iPhone Air launch, and it’s a significant aesthetic overhaul this year. iOS 26 introduces the ‘Liquid Glass’ styling for Apple’s interface and apps — it adds touches of transparency throughout the device, and shadowing that makes buttons appear as if they’re floating slightly.

The idea is that, along with updates to Apple’s Mac and iPad software, there’s a greater sense of unity across Apple’s software. It’s jazzy, but I’m not totally sold on the look — the floating transparency can make things difficult to read as layers pass over each other. It seems inspired by the software styling of the Apple Vision Pro, where the sense of depth to panes and app buttons is useful for giving them a feeling of weight in an augmented reality scenario. It’s not quite as useful here.

What is more useful is the way app elements have more contextual awareness — search bars follow you around the browser, share buttons pop up only when needed, and tabs shrink and expand as you move through them. That’s on top of dozens of other small tweaks throughout the operating system — a camera app that will notify you when the lens is dirty; Live Translations for multi-lingual conversations; the ability to use AirPods as a camera remote; systemwide access to visual intelligence (where AI describes what the camera can see); auto-mixing DJ-like playlists in Apple Music; 3D-like depth to photos in widgets; more Homescreen customisation options — and much, much more. Unlike the introduction of Apple Intelligence, there isn’t one single standout new tool or feature in iOS 26, but lots of smaller, helpful tweaks.

Final verdict: The shape of things to come

The iPhone Air is an exciting new direction for Apple’s smartphone line up. It’s a dramatic rethinking of the classic iPhone form factor and, for a first roll of the dice, it’s delivered without too much compromise.

Yes, I miss the macro photography capabilities, and yes, I wouldn’t want to be travelling too far from a power supply for too long. You’re certainly paying a premium for the form factor here, above all else. But those concessions aside, this is the most fun the iPhone has been in a long time.

And it’s a solid performer in every other aspect — you’ve got a pro-level chipset, a really clever front-facing camera system and, of course, a genuinely startling design that manages to be both delicate to look at and durable under strain.

But this feels like only the start of the story for iPhone Air and… perhaps only half a phone? I couldn’t help but think that you could sandwich two iPhone Air’s together and still have a very pocketable foldable smartphone that could flip out for twice the screen surface area. When it comes to truly going toe-to-toe with the Android competition, it’d be the missing piece of the puzzle in Apple’s smartphone range.

What we have here today is still scintillating. The iPhone Air is a remarkable work of engineering, and impressive enough to be more than just an early-adopter curio.

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