iPhone 17 iPhone 17* Reviews [MERGED]

[itsboi]

Thanks for posting! Pretty much what I expected. Annoying there’s no comment on the single speaker performance. The author clearly fussing too much over the USB speed he forgot about the damn speaker.

Was skimming through the review just to find anything about the speakers bc that is the biggest deal breaker for me... zilch.

 

[NotApplicable]

Thanks for posting! Pretty much what I expected. Annoying there’s no comment on the single speaker performance. The author clearly fussing too much over the USB speed he forgot about the damn speaker.

Yeah, I’m pumped after that review. And it’s just the first, excited to read others

 

[aperfectcircle]

Was skimming through the review just to find anything about the speakers bc that is the biggest deal breaker for me... zilch.

We could take the non mention as a positive! Surely if it was terrible it would have rated a mention. Here’s hoping. I only use the speaker for FaceTime video and the odd quick bit of video content so it’s the volume mainly I’m worried about. It’d be nice that my ringtones sound good as well of course 🤣

 

[JoHugh]

Thanks interesting read and positive on battery life I think, alludes to a thermal issue at the start and then later I think says it’s a non issue. Promising… want to read about speaker too 😂

 

[Oohara]

I can open and read it via Apple News.

Spoiler: Article Copy and Paste

Review: Apple iPhone Air

The ultra-thin iPhone Air is better than you’d expect, but it’s still too high a price to pay for a slim frame.

Incredibly thin and light. Better-than-expected battery life. Great performance. Nice, bright OLED screen with 120-Hz refresh rate. Reliable cellular performance.

Battery life may still be lackluster for some. Single camera is limiting. Not the best value (USB 2 data transfer speeds!). No mmWave 5G. Gets quite hot in one specific spot.

THE IPHONE 17 Pro felt like a brick. I had just gotten used to the featherweight feel of Apple's new iPhone Air after several days of use, but it was time to switch to the iPhone 17 Pro. Suddenly, I didn't want to let the Air go.

It's amazing how a couple of grams and a slimmer profile can drastically change the feel of a phone. There isn’t much to grab on the edges, but the Air's design is whimsical and somewhat paradoxical. It feels like a twig that can snap in a heartbeat, but the sturdy titanium frame dispels any notion of fragility.

I was prepared to hate the iPhone Air. Why make a thin phone with lackluster battery life? A single-camera system for $999? After spending some time with it, I'm pleasantly surprised. I still don't think most people should buy it—it's for early adopters who want to experience Apple's thinnest iPhone to date—but it's a promising blueprint of what's to come.

Thin Air

The iPhone Air is just 5.6 millimeters thick and 165 grams; contrast that with the iPhone 17 Pro, which has a smaller screen yet weighs 206 grams and is 8.75 mm thick. It's a palpable difference. Initially, you might feel like the lighter weight makes the Air seem “cheap,” but that notion quickly disappears. This phone feels strong, durable, and rigid.

I watched Apple perform a bend test on the iPhone Air, and it was able to withstand more than 130 pounds of force with no damage. I gave it a good bend test myself, but it didn't flex. We'll need to see how this phone performs in the hands of a wider audience, but I think you can put your pitchforks away—no #bendgate here. This durability stems from the use of titanium for the frame, along with Apple's new Ceramic Shield 2 protecting the display, and Ceramic Shield 1 layered over the back. Apple says this mixture makes the Air more durable than any prior iPhone.

I can't imagine buying this ultrathin phone and putting a case on it, but I didn't mind Apple's bumper case. The phone still feels light and thin, but the slightly thicker edges of the bumper make it easier to grasp. Annoyingly, despite using a horizontal camera bar like Google's Pixel phones, the camera still sticks out enough that the Air rocks on a table when you tap a corner—a small nitpick.

The 6.5-inch OLED screen once again feels improbable in this thin and light design. It's just unusual to hold such a large screen and not find it heavy. The display now gets brighter, and I had no issues reading it in direct sunlight on clear, sunny days in California and New York. The inclusion of a 120-Hz screen refresh rate on a non-Pro iPhone is long overdue, and it helps this phone feel even more lively.

It's not wrong to say that the Air's thin and light design is pretty much all it has going for it, but that quality shouldn't be undervalued. Using this phone has genuinely been a treat over the usual bulky handsets that come my way. However, just how much you're able to enjoy it depends on what kind of battery life you're used to.

Air Time

Apple is not using a silicon-carbon battery in the iPhone Air, despite rumors leading up to the September event. Instead, there's a high-density traditional lithium-ion battery, along with a raft of optimizations in iOS 26, the A19 Pro chipset, a new power-efficient C1X modem, and a fresh internal design. All this to say: The battery life of the iPhone Air is better than I expected.

The Air was generally able to last a full day with average use for me. I hit around five hours of screen-on time with around 18 percent left by 10:30 pm. This worked for me, but my expectations were also very low. I had to baby the battery so much on the last ultrathin phone I tested, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, and I was surprised to find that this was not the case with the Air.

Heavy users will undoubtedly need to top up this phone during the day. On one travel day, I took the phone off the charger at 5:30 am and used it extensively for navigation, music streaming, phone calls, and Instagram Reeling, and I hit 2 percent by 4:30 pm. If that sounds like a very normal day for you, you'll most certainly feel the limits of this phone's battery life. For the most part, I didn't feel as battery anxious as with Samsung's thin phone.

I also tested Apple's iPhone Air MagSafe Battery, and it's nice that it snugly fits the Air's body, but it awkwardly has to sit horizontally on other iPhone models. Unfortunately, it doesn't deliver a full charge. It took around an hour and 20 minutes to completely deplete the thing, returning 68 percent to the Air from 0 percent.

The Apple-designed C1X modem is supposedly 30 percent more energy-efficient than the modem on the iPhone 16 Pro, but how does this new chip affect connectivity? You don't get millimeter-wave 5G support—that's the ultrafast flavor of 5G you'll find in some locations, like dense urban areas, airports, and stadiums. That means the iPhone Air is limited to sub-6 5G, which is what you connect to most of the time, but it's not as speedy as mmWave. It's a little bizarre to spend $999 on a phone and not get both versions of 5G, considering that's just about standard today, but the omission wasn't noticeable in my day-to-day use.

I didn't run into any connectivity issues. In my internet speed tests, the C1X modem delivered download and upload speeds that were sometimes faster than the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Clear the Air

What's not so great are thermals. Apple spent a great deal of time talking about the new vapor chamber cooling system on the iPhone 17 Pro models, but you'll find none of that here. Perform any intensive tasks on the iPhone Air, and the area around the camera module will feel very hot. I didn't deal with any thermal issues during normal use because most of what I do on my phone doesn't require immense processing. But my benchmark testing delivered interesting results.

The lesser A19 inside the iPhone 17 scored higher in benchmark tests and didn't run as hot as the A19 Pro in the iPhone Air. Mind you, all of these iPhones still got hot, but the iPhone 17 Pro's heat was spread out, so it didn't feel as though one spot was very hot. The other two devices had hot spots, but I measured 110 degrees on the iPhone 17—matching the Pro Max—and 115 degrees on the Air after about an hour of Assassin's Creed Mirage. That extra heat throttled performance a tiny bit, making the game a little more stuttery than on the Pro Max. Another Geekbench test also showed the Air scoring lower than the iPhone 17.

However, Assassin's Creed Mirage performed significantly worse on the iPhone 17 at max graphical settings. It had far more stutters and, dare I say, was a little too annoying to call playable. So while the Air may get hotter and fall behind in some benchmarks, the reality is nuanced. The faster CPU cache, 12 GB of RAM, and other enhancements in the A19 Pro deliver a decent performance boost over the iPhone 17.

Most people aren't going to notice any of this because the A19 and A19 Pro are plenty powerful to handle most apps and games with ease. However, folks who play games with demanding graphics will probably want to look to the iPhone 17 Pro models for the best graphical experience (they also have the best battery life, allowing for longer play times).

The biggest problem with the iPhone Air is its lone 48-MP camera. It feels extremely limiting. Even Samsung was able to stuff an extra ultrawide on the similarly thin Galaxy S25 Edge. In some low-light shots, I found that the iPhone 17's main camera delivered sharper images than the Air sometimes, too. (The sensor on the Air is similar but not identical to the iPhone 17.) While the iPhone 17 can enjoy macro photography, the iPhone Air can't get as close to subjects. You can snap some great photos with the Air—the upgraded 24-MP selfie camera (binned to 18 MP) is nice—but the camera is just not a focal point.

The Air does have the new square-shaped selfie sensor, which lets you hold the phone in portrait orientation and snap photos in either portrait or landscape without changing your grip! Annoyingly, when you manually tap the landscape button to take a landscape selfie, it turns off Center Stage (the auto-zoom-out and auto-rotate). However, when you leave the camera instance and wait a few minutes, Center Stage should turn back on automatically the next time you launch the camera.

As usual, video quality on the iPhone Air remains excellent. I shot several comparison video clips with the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL and Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, and the iPhones routinely came out on top, whether it was the iPhone Air or the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Dual Capture is another fun new addition that lets you capture video with the front and rear camera simultaneously, and while Samsung has had this feature for years, the video quality is so much better on the iPhone.

The iPhone Air's performance was better than expected, but the asking price is too high. Most people will be better served by the iPhone 17, which has a better balance of power, battery life, and a more versatile camera system. For anyone who wants a thicker phone with better battery life, well, Apple has given you exactly that in the form of the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. (Also, why does the iPhone Air still only support USB 2 data transfer speeds?)

The Air showcases just what Apple is capable of when it controls the chips, hardware, and software, in a thin and light design that might be a bedrock for a potential folding iPhone. I don't doubt that there will be a demographic of people who don't take many photos or don't need heaps of battery life that will enjoy the thin and lightweight iPhone Air, much like the devoted group that loved the iPhone Mini. We'll have to wait and see if the Air sticks around, or if it will shortly be replaced by (a folding) something else.

Rating: 7/10

Cheers, really appreciate the copy/paste. This still sounds like the phone for me. The report about focused heating up in the camera bump area are a little concerning, makes me want to hold off on buying for a month or two in case widespread public use will reveal any first gen design problems here.

 

[Joseph C]

Yeah, I’m pumped after that review. And it’s just the first, excited to read others

Same! I’m even excited for the Verge’s, even though it’ll be a lot of their usual “it feels like the future … until it doesn’t”, “a marvel of engineering that somehow still feels like a trap” or “the new iPhone is incredible, but in a way that makes you feel worse about everything” sort of quips. 🤣

 

[Sandertje19]

And there's the review on YouTube:

 

[Maclver]

Really wanna know if the pro is using the Qualcomm X80 modem!!??

 

[Joseph C]

Reviews list:

Tech/News Sites

9to5Mac: iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro

Wired: iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro

Washington Post: iPhone Air

CNET: iPhone 17 Pro (Video), iPhone Air (Video), iPhone 17

Gizmodo: iPhone Air

The Verge: iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro vs Air (Video)

Techradar: iPhone Air, iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max

PCMag: iPhone 17, iPhone Air

Yahoo: iPhone Air and iPhone 17

GQ: iPhone 17 Pro

Engadget: iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone Air

Tom's Guide: iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone 17, iPhone Air

Wall Street Journal: iPhone 17 vs Air

The Independent: iPhone Air

YouTubers

MKBHD: 17/17 Pro/Air Unboxing

iJustine: iPhone Air, iPhone 17

The Tech Chap: iPhone Air

Andru Edwards: iPhone Air

Brian Tong: iPhone 17 Pro/Pro Max, iPhone Air

Mrwhosetheboss: iPhone 17/Air/Pro

Review Roundups

MacRumors: iPhone Air, iPhone 17

 

[4sallypat]

Love this real life use review comparing Air, Pro and Pro Max.

Battery life is shockingly revealed between the models!

 

[tomtad]

Thanks for posting! Pretty much what I expected. Annoying there’s no comment on the single speaker performance. The author clearly fussing too much over the USB speed he forgot about the damn speaker.

Was skimming through the review just to find anything about the speakers bc that is the biggest deal breaker for me... zilch.

It's bad

• The iPhone Air has a single speaker, located in the earpiece at the top of the device. There isn’t a speaker on the bottom like there is on other iPhone models. This was noticeable right away to me. If you regularly listen to podcasts or music using just your iPhone speakers (especially in the shower), you’ll want to invest in a Bluetooth speaker.

iPhone Air review: The thinnest iPhone ever, but at what cost? - 9to5Mac

Every so often, Apple makes a design decision that draws a line in the sand. One that feels like a...

9to5mac.com

 

[arbitrage]

Just saw the MKBHD unboxing under his good lighting setup and that dual tone on the orange is not good. The cutout ruins that look. The darker orange around the cutout is nice but there is too much difference in brightness between the two parts. The blue blends better.

 

[4sallypat]

Not worried about the speaker since I don't use it much.

The battery life between the Air and Pro was shocking!

Pro draws more power thus shorter battery life at the end of the day!

 

[thadoggfather]

credit: The Tech Chap

battery life seems to be pretty good for the Air! (IMO)

 

[Itsedstech]

Hopefully Austin mann does a camera review this year again, I love reading his reviews

 

[BB8]

ive been thinking about the air since they didn't make a black pro model, but the more I read/watch reviews the less i'm into it. it would have been a lot more compelling if they had managed to include the telephoto lens at least.

 

[thadoggfather]

I have only taken a skim at the reviews, but so far, other than Air being a novel form factor and selfie camera self orienting being a square sensor... it really doesn't seem like that big of an upgrade. The Pro's are even heavier than last year despite the switch from Ti to Aluminum, and the battery life increase doesn't seem substantial at all.

--

I'd say if you aren't jonesing to just have the latest or a new color or form factor, it's probably not that hard of a skip from last year.

But being 120hz across the board is nice for 16/16+ users.

I'm still going to give the Air a whirl, and excited about it. But if I don't like it, I think going back to 16+ will be pretty easy.

 

[zkap]

It will be interesting to see the roundup of Air reviews when they're all out. MKBHD rated the battery life at C- and Dave2D, not speaking specifically about battery life, said the Air is a whole conversation and didn't seem all that enthusiastic while saying that, so I think they're teasing reviews that aren't that great. Regardless, paying the price of the Air for a phone where you have to consider what you're giving up and how much that may or may not affect your usage is not acceptable to me, especially since it's not just one thing.

 

[Spinarelo]

You can hand iJustine a turd with an Apple logo on it and she'll think it's the most amazing thing ever made 🤣

 

[vvvvvv]

The Pro's are even heavier than last year despite the switch from Ti to Aluminum, and the battery life increase doesn't seem substantial at all.

I'm not a Pro owner/user, but a 20% battery increase from last year is kind of substantial...

 

[EugW]

View attachment 2550550
credit: The Tech Chap

battery life seems to be pretty good for the Air! (IMO)

The iPhone Air's battery life OK in general terms, but then again, it's easily the worst battery life of those 5 iPhones tested.

 

[uuee6543]

I have only taken a skim at the reviews, but so far, other than Air being a novel form factor and selfie camera self orienting being a square sensor... it really doesn't seem like that big of an upgrade. The Pro's are even heavier than last year despite the switch from Ti to Aluminum, and the battery life increase doesn't seem substantial at all.

--

I'd say if you aren't jonesing to just have the latest or a new color or form factor, it's probably not that hard of a skip from last year.

But being 120hz across the board is nice for 16/16+ users.

I'm still going to give the Air a whirl, and excited about it. But if I don't like it, I think going back to 16+ will be pretty easy.

it won't be easy due to 16+ having a 60Hz screen. You should get a 17 instead.

 

[Macintosh IIcx]

iPhone 17 Pro & Pro Max Review For Photographers​

 

[thadoggfather]

it won't be easy due to 16+ having a 60Hz screen. You should get a 17 instead.

I've had a 120hz phone before. 14PM before 16+.

If I have to adapt again, I do. I have a mini 7 and MacBook Air as well.

I have an M1 iPad Pro with 120hz too, and I notice it / it's nice.. but most of my devices are not 120hz

 

[C. Robert]

They're all just reading off what apple told them to. This is the review; The pro's are packed with features but are chunky and the orange is well, orange. The air's are light and sexy. The 17's are probably the phone you should buy but won't.