One month using the iPhone Air: Is Apple's thinnest phone worth it?

I've always been an iPhone Pro Max user, the top-of-the-line model. Being the best-equipped device, especially in terms of cameras and multimedia capabilities, it's my preferred Apple option. I also use Android, and in that world there are brands like Samsung, Huawei, Motorola, Pixel, Honor, and Oppo, which I use frequently and in parallel, all of them offering high-quality cameras for photos and videos.

That's why, when the iPhone Air was announced, the legacy of the MacBook and iPad 'Air' versions immediately came to mind. Both are true gems of design and power. I must say , the iPhone Air doesn't disappoint: it's a great engineering achievement, with a high-performance computing soul.

In fact, picking up my iPhone 16 Pro Max, the device I will compare the Air to, makes you immediately feel how bulky it is, weighing 227 grams compared to the 165 grams of the model under test.

The iPhone Air hasn't made me miss the Pro Max version: it has the same 'brain' as the iPhone 17 (A19, although with one less core in the GPU compared to the Pro and Pro Max), the same screen quality (brightness, colors, resolution), in a body that is 5.6 millimeters thick.

To create the iPhone Air, Apple had to redesign virtually everything inside the device, adding strength so that its thinness would prevent it from bending, redefining comfort in a market saturated with heavy devices.

It has a 6.5-inch OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, guaranteeing a smooth and bright visual experience for everyday tasks. Nothing to be surprised by compared to other models.

The first trade-off you'll have to pay if you switch to the iPhone Air is its battery life, specifically the 3,149 mAh battery. I'm a very heavy phone user (I start working at 5 am editing topics, chatting, proofreading, taking screenshots to give instructions, answering emails, recording the screen, and so on), and I have to say that by midday I need to plug it into the charger if I want to make it through the day with my phone.

A moderate user can barely make it to the end of the day; any intensive task – such as using GPS, gaming sessions, or recording video – will quickly drain their energy.

The second price to pay for having the thinnest and best-designed iPhone of all is its multimedia capabilities. And not because it lacks the capabilities of other phones: it takes portraits and landscapes with impressive detail, color, and contrast thanks to its unique 48-megapixel (MP) Fusion lens.

Night mode and portrait mode, as well as the Pro video options, are not far behind their iPhone 17 'cousins'. In fact, it has the same 18 MP front camera, with dual capture (photos and videos using the front and rear cameras simultaneously) and Center Stage, which 'searches' for the person during a video call or virtual meeting to keep them centered.

The issue is that having only one lens limits its wide-angle and close-up shooting capabilities. While the iPhone 17 Pro Max offers 0.5x to 8x zoom, the iPhone Air only has two zoom options: 1x and 2x. And for someone like me, who's immersed in multimedia content production on a daily basis, this is a significant issue.

I've read on other websites about the iPhone Air 'overheating', but I haven't experienced that situation myself.

The typical iPhone Air buyer is someone who loves the brand and the Apple ecosystem, and wants to upgrade to a level where design and elegance are paramount, without sacrificing power or camera quality.

This phone is undoubtedly a piece of engineering designed for a very specific niche that values ​​aesthetics, thinness, and lightness above all else. It's been a long time since people around me have asked about my phone, requesting to see it, curious and admiring its thinness and the brightness of its 6.5-inch screen . Even with a case on, the iPhone Air doesn't hide its most distinctive feature.

Along with the phone, I also tested the AirPods Pro 3 and the new Apple Watch 11, which will be the subject of a separate review. Together, with Apple Intelligence working as a team, they offer a wide variety of new features and benefits in health monitoring, exercise, ear care, and sleep quality improvement, which, as I said, are well worth reviewing in detail in another article.