GoKawiilis a senior reviewer with over a decade of experience writing about consumer tech. She has a special interest in mobile photography and telecom. Previously, she worked at DPReview.
I saw a lot of weird phones at Mobile World Congress last month: robot phones, cameras disguised as phones, phones for dogs. But the one that caught me most off guard was the one my friend (and Verge alum) Sam Byford brought to dinner: an iPhone Air.
“Ha!” I said. “You actually use that thing?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s great.” That’s when he pulled out a second phone — the Xiaomi Leica Leitzphone, which he was using alongside it.
Got it, I said. The trick to enjoying the iPhone Air is to simply have another, much better phone on your person at all times. I found this very funny and recounted the anecdote to anyone who would listen. But friends, I come to you with a confession. I think Sam is right: The iPhone Air might actually be good.
The iPhone Air might actually be good
In fairness, I never really thought it was bad bad. I gave it a 7 when I reviewed it last year. The benefits of its slim profile and light weight are easy to understand, and it really does leave an impression when you hold it for yourself. But a phone with worse battery life, a single rear camera, and one measly speaker? For the same price as a regular phone? I kind of wrote it off as a weird thing that happened on the way to the Apple folding phone.
I picked up my iPhone Air review unit again after MWC when I needed to compare its camera to the 17E’s. After the 17E review, I swapped my eSIM to the Air to see if using it for a longer period of time told me anything new. I figured I’d get tired of it after a week or so, but I didn’t. I kinda got hooked.
It helps that I’m not doing any traveling right now, and I’m very rarely away from a charger for an extended period of time. My soft-pants, remote-work lifestyle is very forgiving to a phone with weak battery life. Even so, it lasted through a lengthy excursion out of the house last week. I definitely plugged it in for a recharge when I got back home, since battery percentage was hovering just above 20 percent and I’m allergic to low power mode.
It’s no accident at all that when Apple loaned me the Air to review it also sent the super-slim MagSafe battery pack to go with it. I’ve been putting it to use while I revisit the Air, and not only as an insurance policy when I go out; sometimes it’s nice to have so I can top off the battery while I’m using it around the house without having to tether myself to a wall charger. That got me thinking: Maybe MagSafe is the thing here.
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