| 6.5-inches Super Retina XDR 120Hz OLED Display | A19 Pro (6CPU +5GPU cores) |
IP68 |
| 48MP Fusion Main | 18MP Selfie Cam | 3149mAh + 20W Wired + 20W Wireless |
Ultraslim phones are clearly having their moment again, and the iPhone Air slides right into that comeback story. Apple may not have started the thin-phone trend, but it’s managed to grab attention with how light and polished the Air feels.
From the looks of it, it has almost everything you’d expect from a flagship: a sharp display, premium design, and smooth performance, the lot.
But at ₹1,19,900, you can’t ignore some of the trade-offs that you will be making with the iPhone Air. The single rear camera, which has been borrowed from the iPhone 16e, feels like a compromise at this price. And although Apple’s push for thinness makes the Air look absolutely stunning, it also means that Apple couldn't fit a decent-sized battery into this thing. So who exactly is the iPhone Air for?
Having switched my SIM from my regular and trusty iPhone 16 Pro Max and using the Air for over a week, I’ve got a clearer idea of who it’s built for, and more importantly, if Apple has made a little too many sacrifices in practicality and performance in chasing a design benchmark.
The iPhone Air grabs hold of your attention from the moment you take it out of the box. It’s unbelievably thin, so much so, that it is the kind of phone that makes people and stop look again.
And trust me, photos don’t do it justice. During the week and a half I spent testing it, at least three or four people stopped me to ask which phone I was using. I honestly can’t remember the last time an iPhone or any phone for that matter drew that kind of attention just for how it looked.
For something this slim, it is surprisingly sturdy. It feels as sturdy as a proper metal block, and has that same feel in the hand. I also found that the glossy titanium frame gives it a very futuristic look. It doesn’t feel like any iPhone I’ve used before.
Apple, as you would expect has gone for all kinds of premium materials for this one. You get Ceramic Shield 2 on the front, a grade-5 titanium frame, and a Ceramic Shield glass back. And in spite of how thin it is, the Air doesn’t feel fragile at all. Plus, it has IP68 dust and water resistance, so it’s tougher than it looks too.
Button placement is what you would expect from a typical, big screen iPhone. The Power and camera controls on the right, volume and Action buttons on the left. The speaker grilles and USB-C port sit at the bottom, though it still only supports USB 2.0 speeds. The SIM tray, however, is gone. The iPhone Air is Apple’s first phone to go completely eSIM-only across all regions.
Turn it around, and you’ll see that massive camera bump, now called the camera plateau. It’s pretty thick compared to the rest of the body, but there’s a good reason why Apple decided to go for such a design.
Most of the phone’s main components, like the logic board are packed under that section, leaving the rest of the phone for the battery. The plateau also stretches across the phone's width, so it doesn’t wobble when placed on a table, unlike something like the Galaxy S25 Edge or Fold7.
At just 5.6mm thin, the iPhone Air is Apple’s slimmest phone ever. The camera plateau is hard to miss and does stand out, but it makes sense given what’s inside. It reminds me a bit of the iPhone 6, minus the camera bump. You get that same feeling of holding something slim, bold, and beautifully built. It’s easily one of Apple’s most daring designs in years.
The iPhone Air’s camera setup might seem a little too minimal, and honestly, that’s not a wrong take to have. When you look at phones like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, which manages to stay nearly as slim while squeezing in one extra camera, Apple’s decision to go for just one camera on the back does feel a bit surprising.
The 48MP Fusion sensor does deliver some great results when you put it work though. The photos I took came out looking sharp, vibrant, and were full of detail. You also get that signature Apple look. Balanced colours, great exposure and just vibrant, punchy, but natural-looking images.
Daylight photos particularly look lively and full of life. Even in low light, the images still have great details and colours, and barely have a hint of noise.
However, after just a few days of using the iPhone Air, I did start missing an ultrawide camera. It would have been really nice to have an ultrawide camera, especially given how much you’re paying for the Air.
The iPhone Air also skips a few pro-grade features like ProRAW photos and ProRes video, which we get in the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max.
But what it keeps is Apple’s trademark simplicity. You just open the camera, shoot, and 9 times out 10, you will get consistently great results.
Like all other iPhones, video is again pretty great with this one. It handles 4K at 60fps easily, and stabilisation feels pretty steady. However, the moment you start zooming in, even a little, you see the details softening up.
The real surprise, though, is the front camera. It’s the same new 24MP square sensor that we see across all other iPhones this year. It captures 18MP images and also has Centre Stage. What it does is it automatically adjusts your frame based on how you’re holding the phone and how many faces are in view. This makes taking group selfies a lot easier without having to juggle your phone. Plus, it also takes image stabilisation on the front camera’s video to a whole new level.
The iPhone Air’s display is very easy on the eyes and just as easy to live with. We have a 6.5-inch screen, that sits perfectly between the iPhone 17 Pro and the iPhone 17 Pro Max. It’s big enough for you to watch and enjoy videos or edit photos comfortably, and yet it is compact enough for you to use with one hand.
The display itself is classic Apple, the good kind. We get a Super Retina XDR OLED panel with ProMotion, so it supports a 120Hz refresh rate, like the rest of the iPhone lineup this year. No matter what I was doing, like scrolling through social media, gaming, or even reading long articles, everything was buttery smooth.
Colours are also pretty accurate without being overly saturated. It also has 3000 nits of peak brightness so whether you’re indoors or outside in harsh sunlight, it just works.
Where the iPhone Air really comes in its own is in how it handles video. The display supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision which makes colours in videos pop. I watched Despicable Me and Minions for my test, and the colours looked so rich and sharp that it made me grin. Everything on this screen just looks alive.
The stereo speakers also deserve shoutout. While they don’t get as loud as the iPhone 17 Pro Max, but they are still pretty loud enough. For such a slim phone, the sound is pretty crisp and surprisingly balanced. Whether you’re watching something on Netflix or YouTube, or are listening to music on Apple Music or Spotify, the iPhone Air gives you a genuinely premium media experience.
The iPhone Air gets Apple’s A19 Pro chip, the same SoC we find inside the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. However, Apple has made some changes for the Air. It uses a six-core CPU and a five-core GPU, so its closer to the standard iPhone 17's A19 SoC.
All of this means, tt should perform better than the 17 and just sit a little lower than the 17 and 17 Pro Max. Benchmarks however, show something different. The iPhone 17 Pro Max scored over 2.3 million in our run of AnTuTu, while the vanilla 17 got about 2.2 million. The Air, on the other hand, scored just over 2.0 million.
In using the iPhone Air, though for my day-to-day stuff, those number really didn't mean anything though. It felt just as fast as any of the other iPhones from this year's lineup that I have tested. Apps launch in an instant and without any delays. Multitasking and switching between apps is smooth and pretty much seamless. Plus, the animations are pretty smooth, despite being more resource-heavy because of Liquid Glass.
The only time I could tell a difference in performance between the Air and other iPhones launched this year was while gaming.
I played BGMI and a few other demanding titles, and while the experience and performance stayed quite smooth for the most part, the phone did heat up quicker than the 17 or 17 Pro Max. It was not exactly somehting to be alarmed about though. This is a side effect of packing such powerful hardware into such a thin body. Having said that, even after half an hour of gaming, I didn’t face frame drops or lag, so performance still feels solid.
Moving on to the software, the iPhone Air ships with iOS 26, which as we have seen is a massive visual overhaul of iOS's UI. The new Liquid Glass design makes the interface feel cleaner and more dynamic. The Messages and Phone apps get a neater and more organised layouts. The Music app also feels smarter and comes with some pretty slick new features. I also love the new dynamic lock screen let you customise a tonne. I’ve been using iOS 26 since the early beta builds after WWDC 2025, and while those versions were buggy, the final release feels stable and cohesive.
Where Apple still hasn’t caught up is AI. Tools like Image Playground, Visual Intelligence, and the new writing assistant sound ambitious but don’t match what Android phones are already doing. Visual Intelligence tries to recreate Google’s Circle to Search, but it doesn’t feel as fluid. And let's not even get started with the enitre fiasco about Siri getting the Apple Intelligence treatment. If AI-powered features are your priority, Android still has the edge, at least for now.
Apple is shipping the iPhone Air with a 3,149 mAh battery, so obviously, I didn’t have high hopes from it. Apple launching a separate MagSafe Battery Pack just for the iPhone Air also set some alarms off.
But having using it for over a week, the battery life turned out to be much better than what I had expected. The iPhone Air easily got me through a full day. I’m a pretty demanding user when I am testing a phone and take a ton of photos, watch a lot of videos on YouTube and Netflix, and also game lot. And still, on most days, I would end the day with about 10 per cent still left.
Some days, when I did push the Air harder than normal, the MagSafe Battery Pack did save me from getting into trouble. Now, we have no clear indication as to what the capacity of the battery back is, but it charged my phone up to around 65 per cent from 1 before, before running out of juice.
Charging the iPhone Air was faster than I thought. Using a 70 W charger, I was getting about 18W of charging speeds and got to about 50 per cent in half an hour. A full charge would take me in roughly an hour and a half. We also get wireless MagSafe charging, which tops out at 20W and worked smoothly every time.
I think the iPhone Air is Apple’s way of testing the waters before it makes its next big leap in design, and launch a folding iPhone. At this point, a foldable iPhone is all but certain, and the Air feels like a preview of what we might get to see.
It is a showcase of sorts, of how far Apple can push its design and engineering processes before taking that step. It reminds me of what Samsung did with the S25 Edge, using it as a bridge to the Galaxy Z Fold7. As a result, the iPhone Air, in my book is an engineering masterpiece from Apple.
But does that mean, you should buy it? Well, this phone is for people who put design above everything else. It’s unbelievably thin and light and has been built beautifully. It looks every bit as premium as you’d expect from Apple. On top of that, the display is stunning, it has decent performance.
But if your priorities are having a great camera and battery life, the iPhone 17 or 17 Pro Max are much better options for you.
The Air isn’t about flexing about specs, but more about pushing design boundaries. And for that, I applaud what Apple has managed to do here.
