First Trip With the Air (and a decision)

Hardware
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—Backstory—
As I mentioned elsewhere, I bought a 17 Pro and an Air and am spending 2 weeks figuring out which is the right one for me. Last week had a work trip (car, not flight) with the Pro and this week I’m on a trip (flight) with the Air. I’m coming from the 16 Pro, so I feel like I need less time with the 17 Pro to understand the strengths and weaknesses.

I used the Air all weekend, but today was my first real travel day with the Air and I wanted to report on how it went.

Two important things to know about my perspective:

  • I think cell phone cameras aren’t very good, and so (while I wouldn’t mind having a phone camera that replaced my point and shoot) I carry a point and shoot when I haven an opportunity to take pictures that matter. I know David is using shorthand when he says the “Air has worse cameras” than the Pro, but it annoys me slightly because the cameras it has are exactly the same quality. The Air lacks the additional cameras for wide angle and zoom.

  • I don’t have or understand battery anxiety (not just on phones - I drive an EV and don’t worry about battery charge on that either!).

—Backstory—

—Travel Day Way Too Detailed Experience —
Reflections on the day:
I love how light the Air is. I love the extra real estate on the screen.

Mostly, it acts like an iPhone. I didn’t experience a significant difference between this phone and any other iPhone in my travels today. Unlike my 16 Pro, it didn’t overheat and reduce the screen brightness every 15 seconds, so that was nice.

The battery was a non-issue. It came off the charger at 6am EST. I worked from home for a few hours (not touching the phone) and left the house around 9am with high 90s battery. I took Marta (train/subway) to the airport with 30-40 minutes of podcast listening and random tapping around apps. Airport security, gate, etc - still listening to podcasts and using the screen regularly. 20 minutes of hotspot use before we took off.

2 hour flight - audiobook, regular screen use (watching Flighty). Landed, left the airport, get to rental car, Waze, etc.

30 minute meeting using the Air as a hotspot for my laptop. Check in the hotel and now I check the battery for the first time: 42%. It’s 3:20pm EST. I plug it in for 20 minutes while I take a Slack call. Unplugged (after 20 minutes) because I needed to use it for something and forgot to plug it back in.

After a few hours of meetings, I get in the car - plug it in this time for CarPlay. Blah blah blah, use it like normal the rest of the day and when I get back to my hotel room at 9:30pm EST it’s on 89%. This is why I don’t worry about battery.

—Travel Day Way Too Detailed Experience —

— Conclusion and Decision —
The Air is too big for me. I love the extra screen space but, as much as I like the weight reduction, it doesn’t fit comfortably in a pocket, it’s too big in my travel phone mount (for CarPlay), and I have to stretch too much to reach things I want on the screen. This is why I never did the plus phones. The extra real estate is great but the overall size isn’t.

I like the Air, and if you like big phones and are okay losing the zoom cameras, you should get it. I think the tradeoffs are very, very minor overall for someone who likes big phones. For me, the size just doesn’t work. I already am annoyed by the weight of the Pro but it just feels better in the hand to me. Alas. Good effort, Apple. Good product, even. I’m looking forward to the folding phone but I hope it’s Pro-sized (x2) and not Air-Sized.

8 Likes
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Side note:

I heard on MPU and read on X people talking about difficulty and confusion with the new phone setup process.

Over the last 10 days, I’ve done this process 5 times. Each time I’ve done “restore from iCloud backup” and each time it’s been quick and flawless. Sometimes I think the Apple Tech pundits over-think things and create problems for themselves.

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One more update:

Just for fun, this last (hopefully) time I have to set up a “new” phone I tried the phone-to-phone transfer. It also worked quickly and without any issues.

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I agree. I’ve successfully transferred and restored my device from an iCloud backup without any problems. The entire process took about an hour. The transfer of the eSIM was also quick and seamless.

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Yes! I have 2 eSIM on this phone - personal and work. I’ve moved them back and forth 4-5 times in the last week testing these new phones and haven’t had an issue once.

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I just listened to Jason’s Air review on Upgrade and agree almost entirely. I would have kept this phone except for the difficulty of using it (at all) one handed and the amount of shifting around in my hand I have to do to use it on the move. It’s a great small tablet if I’m stationary but just a bit too big for a phone (for me).