iPhone Air – the perfect memory phone

The iPhone Air is misunderstood!

Without doubt, the iPhone Air has been the dark horse of this year’s iPhone releases. It’s this phone that everyone wants to know about – and with good reason. It’s gorgeous, inconceivably thin, and it’s a completely new iPhone product line.

Although people are tempted by the Air, there are always questions holding them back from pulling the trigger on the Air. Will the battery see me through the day? Is the single speaker an issue, and is the camera up to scratch?

With the summer fading, you may be planning an autumn break, and with Christmas looming, you may be wondering if the iPhone Air would be up to capturing those precious, once-in-a-lifetime, special family memories.

In short, can the iPhone Air cut it? Can it truly be your only device?

This week I used the iPhone Air as my single creator’s tool as I headed off for a few days to The Cotswolds in the UK. I used it to vlog with, record my main weekly YouTube video with, shoot pictures and b-roll on, plus I used it to take care of basic admin.

I’ve done all of that successfully on the iPhone Air!

iPhone Air – too pretty for its own good

It’s so easy to judge a book by its cover, isn’t it?

In the case of the iPhone Air, the obvious conclusion to draw is that it’s overpriced and under-spec’d. It only has a single camera lens and only one speaker. I mean, how on earth can that be considered a serious phone?

Sure, if you go by the headline specs, it’s easy to come to the wrong conclusion. But once we start to peel back its pretty skin, there is a truth lurking that may surprise you.

Even the basics hold a surprise, though. It’s dressed in four very subtle colours of Cloud White, Sky Blue, Light Gold, and a smudge-magnet Space Black. But unlike the iPhone 17, which you can only buy with either 256GB or 512GB, with the iPhone Air, you can also choose it with 1TB of storage.

Apple has clearly chosen to pitch this as a premium device and one that is very much intended to stand alone in its lineup. My telling you it’s thin is a waste of breath – this phone is all about the holding and feeling it. It’s a thing of beauty, it really is, and the titanium frame just adds to that feeling of luxury.

Price-wise, Apple has chosen to split the pack. In basic configs, the iPhone 17 costs £799, the iPhone Air £999, and the iPhone 17 Pro £1099. In other words, the Air sits slap bang in the middle.

It’s easy to say that you are paying more for less – but is that actually the case?

Pulling back the covers

The iPhone 17 only gets the A19 chip, whereas the iPhone Air gets a binned version of the A19 Pro chip (it loses one GPU core compared to the A19 chip in the Pros).

The Air gets 12GB of memory, whilst the poor old 17 only has 8GB. The 17 has a 6.3-inch screen, but the Air gets a larger 6.5-inch display. The Air also gets the C1X modem, which I can tell you makes a vast difference to call quality.

To get the phone this thin Apple had to be inventive. The USB-C port on here was even 3D printed to pare it down as much as possible. Apple has honestly pulled out all the stops when it comes to this phone.

That larger display I mentioned a moment back also deserves some praise. Yes, it’s the same Super Retina OLED display that’s found in all iPhone 17s, but because it almost appears that it’s just a piece of glass in your hand, it feels more special.

Apple are in the habit of writing their wrongs this year. They’ve listened and made sure to up their game in pretty much all areas. We now have a meaningful anti-reflective coating that is very nearly the match of Samsung’s, and we are now finally free of micro-scratches!

I’ve been using the iPhone Air for three weeks now on two road trips without a case or screen protector, and there is not a mark on it. I know it may be early days, and I don’t want to crow too loudly, but it seems as if the Ceramic Shield Glass 2 is the answer we’ve been waiting for.

That 3000 nits of max daytime brightness is effective but doesn’t hammer the battery. I found that I’ve not been afraid to crank it up when I’ve been out for the day, and it has never once got warm, either.

I’ll talk a little bit more about the battery in a bit, but even though this is an Always-On, ProMotion display, I’m easily getting through the day on a single charge. The doubters have been proven wrong!

Speak up

OK – let’s get into it, shall we?

The haters will rapidly point out that the iPhone Air only has a single speaker. To my mind, or should that be to my ear, it’s not an issue. As with the camera, sometimes it’s not about the quantity but rather about the quality.

Firstly, how often do you use the speaker? Right off the bat, if you are one of those folks who hold the phone in front of their mouths to take a call, well, I’m sorry, but we simply can’t be friends!

But assuming you have manners, how often do you use the speaker? For me, it’s only in the shower room. In that environment, no speaker is going to sound good. In those instances, all I want from a speaker is one that’s loud enough but still doesn’t offend.

The speaker on the iPhone Air ticks those boxes! It’s perfectly usable for the rare times I need to use it. But I’d guess that nearly everyone who is going to lay down £1000 for this gorgeous bit of art (as that’s what it is!) would also have a pair of AirPods knocking about. On this trip, I took my AirPods Pro 3 with me, so the speaker was never an issue.

The iPhone Air has a single speaker…so what?

Another story of solitude

The iPhone Air enjoys breaking the mould!

Not only does it have the cheek to have a single speaker, but it only has one camera!

I’m ready to die on my sword for this one! Much like the speaker, it’s the quality, not the quantity, that matters. While there is only one lens on the back, it’s a bloody good one that, from what I’ve seen, gets the job done.

That age-old saying comes to mind with the iPhone Air – the one that says the best camera you have is the one that’s with you. Because this phone is so delightfully petite, it will always be with you.

On this trip, I started to call it the perfect memory phone or camera. You’ll not miss a moment or cherished second using the Air as it’ll always be with you.

Choosing the 1x mode means you’ll get a choice to shoot in either 26mm or 35mm. I love the 35mm focal length as it gives a very ‘camera’ quality feel to the images. Slap on a Photographic Style (currently I’m using the Amber one) and you’ll end up with some amazing-looking photos.

All the pictures that I’m using in this story were shot using the native camera app, and I didn’t edit them all. I reckon scrolling through Insta, you’d be hard pressed at first glance to tell that these pictures were shot on an iPhone Air and its ‘lowly, single’ camera.

Look, you’ll know the kind of pictures you shoot, and that will partly be the driver for what phone you’ll end up choosing. If you look back through your album and find you’ve shot a ton of ultra-wide or tele shots, then clearly, this isn’t the phone for you.

But if you want a point and shoot phone that does everything well, then the Air could well be what you are after. Any camera will only be as good as the hands that it’s in, but with a little creativity, the camera set up on the iPhone Air is good.

Because of the crowds at Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm Shop and his pub The Farmers Dog, I had moments to get my shots before crowds ruined the moment, and the Air did me proud.

So what if you can’t shoot in ProRes or ProRaw? The simpler menu choices, rather than being a weakness, are a strength. You also have a very decent camera on the front now, too, that’ll even shoot in 4K 60fps. The Air is a pretty decent all-rounder, I’d say.

The colour management baked into the native video app works for me. It’s not too over-saturated and has a fairly natural cast to it. Image stabilisation is massively improved, as are the low-light photo capabilities as well. So if you’re wondering if this camera is one you take on your next holiday, hand on heart, I can tell you yes.

The iPhone Air epitomises what a point-and-shoot camera should be about. During this past trip, there wasn’t one image I took that wasn’t good enough to use. Memories were made using the iPhone Air.

I make a living out of shooting video and taking pictures. I wouldn’t risk putting something out there that I felt was not professional or was going to embarrass me. On this recent trip, once again, the iPhone delivered.

I’m struggling to find its weak points.

More than enough battery

I just don’t buy into the concerns over the battery, honestly, I don’t.

I’ve already written about my experiences with the iPhone Air’s battery in other stories, but unless I absolutely hammer it by recording in 4K 30fps all day, then the battery has been fine. I’d actually go as far as to say that I have more concerns about the battery on my 17 Pro Max than I have about the one in the Air.

On my average kind of days, a single charge is easily getting me through a day, and by a day, I’m meaning taking it off charge at around 7 in the morning and not having to think about the battery until around 11 in the evening.

There was a host of concerns about the battery on the Air before the phone had ever come out. Apple didn’t help themselves by releasing a battery pack at the iPhone event that was specifically designed for the Air. Possibly, they feared the worst, but in reality, it’s working out just fine.

Is the iPhone Air for you?

I can’t put myself in your shoes, but for my money, the iPhone Air has proven to be a huge win.

The switch to eSIM was painless, the design is second to none, and it is possibly the prettiest phone around. It’s lightweight, easy to use, and more importantly, won’t let you down. The iPhone Air will make memories. It’s a memory maker.

Don’t listen to the rumours and haters. Trust your heart and your eyes.