Competition
Apple kicked-off a trend with super slim and lightweight phones with the release of the iPhone Air. Even if Samsung beat Apple to the market with the Galaxy S25 Edge, there’s little doubt who influenced who to go there.
Still, Galaxy S25 Edge remains the most direct competitor to the iPhone Air. Samsung’s contender is ever so slightly thicker, but two grams lighter, but iPhone Air feels more compact in the hand, largely due to its smaller screen and oval edges and corners. Battery life is close between the two with the Air ever so slightly ahead, but the Galaxy S25 Edge has a dual camera at the back with a larger main sensor to boot. However the Galaxy is considerably cheaper in the US and Europe, carrying a €/$300-400 lower price tag.
Alternatively, the Pixel 10 Pro is similarly priced to the iPhone Air, and is just as compact, but not as slim and lightweight. It has surprisingly shorter battery life, but a brighter screen and a more versatile and far better camera experience overall.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge • Google Pixel 10 Pro
In case you are locked in Apple’s ecosystem you have two options within the same budget. You can choose between the iPhone 17 and last year’s iPhone 16 Pro (while supplies last). The former received a solid upgrade, coming much closer to the Pro models for about €/$150 less. Moreover, the vanilla iPhone 17 offers an ultrawide camera and the same primary sensor as the Air, in addition to longer battery life. So if you are not entirely sold on the “slim and lightweight” idea, you are better off with the regular iPhone 17.
Last but not least, the iPhone 16 Pro is about 100 bucks cheaper than the Air this year, as long as you can still find it at third-party retailers since Apple discontinued the Pro models. Even though it’s a yesteryear phone, the iPhone 16 Pro is a better phone than the Air in almost every way, except being slim and lightweight and the selfie camera.
Apple iPhone 16 Pro • Apple iPhone 17
Verdict
The iPhone Air isn’t for everyone, nor was it ever meant to be. Apple was forced to try something different given the sluggish sales of the Plus model. The iPhone Air feels like a Pro design model, in contrast with the usual Pro performance devices the company does. To achieve an extremely slim and lightweight body, Apple had to make some compromises, with the most obvious ones being camera performance. The battery handicap isn’t severe as we feared.
And even the camera on the back is capable of delivering excellent stills and videos, and the new selfie camera is solid. Obviously the setup is nowhere near as versatile as you can expect at this price point and it’s a shame Apple didn’t at least opt for the larger 48 MP sensor that the Pros carry.
More worrying is that we found the build quality to be less than perfect and the overall feel somewhat cheap, despite the premium materials. There’s a bit of subjectivity to that so we would suggest you try it yourselves instead of blindly trusting us on this one. But if you are on the same page that’s certainly going to be a deal-breaker for a design-first premium smartphone.
But even if you end up passing on the Air, there’s no denying it’s an impressive engineering feat. Excellent screen, top-notch performance and solid battery in a package this thin are praiseworthy. The charging is painfully slow, but then even iPhone Pros weren’t any better until a month ago.
All in all, the iPhone Air tries to do things differently in an attempt to bring in new crowds under the iOS banner. The kind of people that will take a one-of-a-kind device even with significant drawbacks instead of heading to the arena of flagships fighting over a few extra pixels or milliamps. There’s certainly no shortage of such customers, but it remains to be seen how many of them are willing to pay the premium price of the Air.
Pros
- Unrivaled portability, exceptionally thin and light.
- LTPO OLED with Dolby Vision and HDR10, excellent sunlight legibility.
- Great performance.
- Solid battery life.
- Excellent selfies
- Very good video capturing, albeit with limited focal lenght options.
Cons
- Single camera at the back and with the smaller sensor too
- Cheap-ish feeling in the hand.
- Battery life not as good as other iPhones.
- Charging is slower too, USB 2.0.
- Apple iOS 26 is chaotic and starts to fall behind the curve in terms of features.
- Storage upgrades are costly.
- Just one speaker, quiet and with unsatisfactory audio quality at that.
- No physical SIM card slot