iPhone Air battery review: Plenty of juice for most users
I’ve been using the new iPhone Air for almost a week, having got my hands on it last Thursday. For the first few days, I used it without an eSIM as I hadn’t had the chance to convert my physical SIM. However, for the past few days, I’ve been running it exclusively on an eSIM. My usage has varied significantly: some days have been heavy, others light, and on one occasion when I was unwell, I spent the entire day in bed using the phone.
This has given me a broad range of experiences with the iPhone Air, allowing me to properly assess its battery life. This is a major concern for many potential buyers, who are drawn to the iPhone Air for its beautiful, ultra-thin 5.6 mm design and light weight. If you’re one of those people who has been holding off on buying the iPhone Air until you know how its battery will fare, I have the details for you. The short answer is that for most people, it won’t be a concern. Here’s why.
What’s it like on heavy days with 5G usage?
On one particularly heavy day of use, my day involved plenty of navigation. I deliberately avoided plugging the phone into my car for Apple CarPlay to prevent it from charging. It remained on 5G throughout the journey, unplugged. I left home at around 9:30 am on a full charge, navigated to a cafe, took photos, and filmed a few videos in 4K. I even used the phone at maximum brightness under the bright Jaipur sun, now that the monsoon rains have subsided. By lunchtime, the phone still had around 60% of its battery remaining.
Later, I went to a friend’s house, took a few calls, and handed the phone around to friends who were awestruck by its slim profile. We also compared its camera with the iPhone 16 Pro, which I am also using. By the time I returned home around 5:00 pm, the battery was nearing single digits and would certainly have died had I not put it for charge in my car. You can expect decent, though not extraordinary, battery life from the iPhone Air, which is to be expected given its form factor.
This is where things get interesting. Your lifestyle plays a crucial role. If you own a car and regularly use services like Apple CarPlay during your commute to the office or the gym, the iPhone Air’s battery life becomes a non-issue. These quick top-ups will keep it going for longer. For instance, you might leave home at 9 am and find the battery has dropped to 80% by the time you reach the office. This wouldn’t happen if it were plugged in, which it would be if you were using CarPlay. In this scenario, you maintain a high percentage of charge. By plugging it in again on your way to lunch or back home, you can easily top it up, and the battery should not be a problem. It really depends on your daily routine.
How did it perform on a light day?
On a typical working day, I started with a fully charged phone at around 8:30 am. After logging into work and researching some articles, the battery had dropped by about 10% to 89% by 9:30 am. After a tea break, I installed social media apps like Instagram and X and did some obligatory doomscrolling. I also used Instagram for work, uploading a video to the official Hindustan Times Tech account and creating a thumbnail on the phone. By 1 pm, the phone had dropped to about 66%, and I noticed the idle drain is not particularly impressive.
The day continued with scanning a few documents, researching ideas on Instagram (which mostly involved watching Reels), replying to WhatsApp messages, and taking a few calls. By the time my workday ended, the phone was at around 30%. For comparison, my iPhone 16 Pro, when it was new, would have been at around 40-something% in the same situation. So yes, there is a definite battery performance drop compared to the iPhone Pro models, and this gap would be even more significant against the latest iPhone 17 Pro. Again, if you have access to a charger at your desk, this is unlikely to trouble you. It is not bad; at the very least, it doesn’t give me the battery anxiety my old iPhone 12 mini used to.
Who should not buy the iPhone Air for its battery life?
So, for whom is the iPhone Air’s battery life a deal-breaker? If you spend a lot of time on the road or on field visits, have little access to charging solutions, and simply need a phone that lasts all day, you would be best served by the iPhone 17 Pro Max, or even the regular iPhone 17 Pro. Those will perform better.
In real-world scenarios, you can expect a screen-on time of about four to five hours with mixed-to-light usage, and around four hours with heavy use. That is a couple of hours less than what you would get from the standard iPhone 17 or the previous iPhone 16 Pro, which is worth keeping in mind. It’s also important to remember that as the phone ages and the battery degrades, this figure will inevitably decrease.
However, if that doesn’t concern you, and you are someone who prefers form over function, and is fine with “okay” or “B-” battery the iPhone Air is a no-brainer. It is far from being a phone with a bad battery life.
