The iPhone Air is an eye-catching smartphone, but it features an audio drawback that's putting me off

Apple debuted its latest take on the iPhone at last night's "Awe Dropping" event, and I have mixed feelings about it.

The iPhone Air is unquestionably a marvel of engineering, measuring in at just 5.6mm and weighing a mere 165g, making it the antithesis of the bulky Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra that currently occupies my pocket.

Its slender profile, sleek lines, and integrated camera bar make it the most un-iPhone looking iPhone in recent memory, but I'm warming up to the design. In reality, design is what it's all about with this phone, as its futuristic build is its unique selling point.

Despite that, Apple is touting Pro-level iPhone specs here, with the latest A19 Pro chipset, which can also be found in the new iPhone 17 Pro Max. The paper-thin chassis reportedly won't impact battery life either, with Apple claiming an impressive 27 hours of video playback on a single charge.

So, maybe this isn't the form-over-function device I have been bracing myself for since the rumours of a super-slim iPhone began circulating. Well, there is one catch, and it's one that I'm not willing to live with.

The iPhone Air only sports a mono speaker, which is located in the earpiece at the top of the handset and doesn't get any backup from a bottom-mounted loudspeaker like the one you'll find on the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro.

Apple, understandably, didn't shout about this downgrade during its livestreamed event. This is likely because this drawback makes the iPhone Air the first iPhone to not feature a stereo speaker system since the iPhone 6S, which was released a decade ago.

Now, this might not be a dealbreaker to everyone, but as someone who uses their phone's speakers more than they perhaps should, it's not a compromise I'm willing to make.

While I never commit the cardinal sin of blasting music from my phone's speakers, I use them to watch the occasional TV episode, and more frequently to watch TikToks, Instagram Reels and YouTube videos.

While these aren't the cinephile-quality tasks that we usually judge phones on, they're the real-life day-to-day functions that I use my phone for, and I'm willing to bet that's the case with plenty of other people out there.

I'd rather avoid thin-sounding mono audio if possible, so my hopes aren't all that high for the iPhone Air's loudspeaker performance.

I'm also confused as to how Apple will achieve Dolby Atmos audio from a mono speaker, as the recent batch of iPhones have all supported the immersive audio format from their earpiece and loudspeaker combination system, and they've been fairly effective at doing so.

Now, I have to give Apple some credit here, as in the grand scheme of things, this is a fairly modest downgrade. The rest of this slender phone's specifications are pretty impressive, but I'll need to get the phone in hand to figure out how it deals with movies and music.

For now, I'm hesitant to get too excited about it, as this audio-related drawback is pushing me towards the cheaper iPhone 17.

MORE:

Read the full Apple iPhone Air reveal news here

Here's our full iPhone 16 review

As well as our picks for the best iPhones