First Impressions: One Week with the ‘iPhone Air’

By Dean Blake - News

Published: 26 Sep 2025

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Readtime: 8 min

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Like most other tech reviewers on the planet right now, I’ve spent the past week putting the iPhone Air through its paces. Apple’s newest gadget, the Air delivers something the iPhone line-up has been sorely needing in recent years—something new and exciting—and, in my opinion, it largely succeeds at that.

It isn’t a revolutionary phone and other brands got on the thin trend ahead of them, but Apple has delivered something that is a pretty solid device for the right customer. Is it right for everyone? No, I don’t think so—but for someone like me, who doesn’t use their phone as a mobile camera rig, it’s pretty tempting.

While I’m planning a more in depth review in the coming week, I thought it’d be a good idea to share some of my initial impressions of the device to detail some of the things I’ve liked about it, as well as some of the pain points, in the hopes of helping someone decide if this is the phone for them or not.

Tech Specs

1. The Screen is Beautiful, but Sound is an Issue

Up until earlier this week, I had been using last years’ iPhone 16e as my daily phone. It’s a great little device (if a little overpriced), and honestly provides everything I need in a smartphone: but the jump to the Air has shown my just how fantastic Apple’s ProMotion displays are.

The 16e has a screen that caps out at 60Hz, while the entire iPhone 17 line-up (including the Air) come equipped with a 120Hz display: meaning a much faster and snappier feeling screen. Moving between apps and folders feels amazing, and while it’s tough to find 120fps videos even on dedicated platforms like YouTube, there are a few games that’ll allow you to hit the frame-rate cap and see the display unleash its true potential.

Add to that the fact the Air’s display is a 6.5” OLED panel, and you have a responsive and beautiful screen. It’d be one of the best phones for consuming content on the market, if not for the fact that it gave up something pretty important in the pursuit of its signature slimness.

The iPhone Air has only one speaker, at the top end of the display, meaning no stereo sound. It’s a decent speaker don’t get me wrong, but I’ve noticed the drop in quality even from last year’s budget 16e, which isn’t something you’d want to be saying if you’d just paid AU$1,799 on a brand new bleeding-edge, thin-and-light phone.

If you’re looking to use this display to the fullest, I’d recommend you grab a decent pair of headphones or earbuds to offset the pretty average sound quality.

2. It’s Very Thin and Very Light

Let’s just quickly get this out of the way. I’m sure you’re probably sick of hearing that this thing is thin and light, but it really is and it’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it. Making a phone this thin required Apple to effectively reengineer the entire make up of an iPhone, but to me the lasting impact of having a 165 gram phone is actually more substantial.

I’ve been wishing Apple would launch a new iPhone Mini for the past several years, and while the Air isn’t a replacement for that, it’s strangely close in that it’s light enough to be used in one-hand quite easily. You still can’t reach the top of the screen when supporting the device with one hand, so there’ll be some shuffling involved if your other hand is busy, but the fact that it is so light and easy to move actually does alleviate some of those frustrations.

Also, if you’re using it in bed and drop it on your face it doesn’t hurt as much as a heavier phone—don’t ask me how I know that.

3. eSIM-only is a Barrier depending on Carrier

Chances are high that if you’re someone seriously looking at upgrading to an iPhone Air, you’re probably already with one of the major carriers (Telstra, Optus, et al), and shifting your plan to eSIM only won’t be an issue. In fact, Apple has worked hard with these very providers to make sure it’s a seamless and simple prospect that will probably be dealt with via a single button press while setting up your phone.

Unfortunately, I’m with a less expensive carrier, and it ended up taking me about three days (and an hour on hold to customer support) to actually get my plan capable of running on the Air. Now, I’ve reviewed plenty of phones for Man of Many, and the process has always been that I can easily swap my SIM card into whatever phone I’m using and be up and running immediately. This time, it wasn’t so simple.

I know that this isn’t likely to be an issue most people face, and it honesty isn’t the fault of the Air itself, but it’s worth keeping in mind if you’re looking at switching you should do your due diligence before actually making the purchase so you don’t have to carry around multiple phones like I did.

4. Battery Life is Fine, Actually

Much was made of the Air’s potential battery life once the device was finally announced, and while it is a bit less than even the much smaller 16e I’m used to (which actually has a great battery), it isn’t actually an apocalyptic scenario assuming you’re using your phone in pretty normal ways.

Taking the occasional call, while using it mainly for playing music, browsing social media, and watching some video? It’ll last you a full day. If you’re doing something a bit more specialised though, like filming video or playing video games, and I don’t think this thing will last too long. Apple seems to know this, as it launched the iPhone Air Battery Pack alongside the Air.

Now, I’ll probably do a more dedicated iPhone Air Battery Pack review in the coming days as I use it more, but suffice to say it does add quite a bit of extra time to the device. Is it cheeky that Apple is selling you more battery life in order to give you a thinner phone? Yeah, it is a bit. But, they’ve been doing that for years with the specs of the iPhone Pro and Pro Max, though I suppose you also get a bigger screen in that deal.

5. It’s Not for Everyone

While I’ve grown pretty accustomed to the Air’s aesthetics and how it feels in the hand over the past week, it has been a more divisive device than I was expecting. Opinions are mixed in the Man of Many office, and when I handed it to my girlfriend she held it for about 2 seconds before dropping it in near disgust. To her, it feels… off, like half a phone.

I can’t blame her, nor anyone who thinks the iPhone Air is a gimmick. It’s a first-generation product, and though we’re certainly seeing more thin phones on the market, they haven’t quite hit the mainstream yet. They’re a luxury product, and I think most people aren’t likely to take them seriously for another few years. Maybe by then we can get a stereo speaker included?

For clarity, Apple provided us an iPhone Air unit for review, as well as the external battery pack, but no money exchanged hands and it won’t see our thoughts or opinions on the devices before they’re published—it’s our standard review process, which you can check out here.

If you’re interested in having some specific questions answered by the broader review, feel free to comment them on this story and I’ll aim to answer as best I can.