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iPhone Air Phone for 60-something year old Mom?

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brianj922

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 22, 2015
43
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Hoping for a little advice for a phone for my 60-something year old mother! She's had an iPhone 13 now for three years and is ready to upgrade. We're trying to decide if she should get an iPhone Air or an iPhone 17. Her biggest complaint about her 13 right now is battery life. I told her how the iPhone Air only has one camera on the back and she said, "that's one more than I need."

My thought is the iPhone Air is quoted for better battery life than the iPhone 13 was originally and obviously her phone's battery now dies quickly partly because it's three years old. I also think she would appreciate how thin and light the air is. My bigger concern is will the air's battery last her three years? Or should she just do an iPhone 17 to be safe. I also weighed the option of a Pro just for the bigger battery but I don't think she needs that much phone.
 
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My thought reading the post is three years is an awful short life for an iPhone battery under usual use conditions. I wonder if the device gets exposed to heat, like being left in a hot car, or something like that. Or maybe it is that phone, or rather that battery in that phone. I think the iPhone Air should be fine. If the lifetime of the battery ends up being short, odds are it isn't the phone. Just my opinion.
 
@aihpcfl honestly 100% chance she's done something to her phone. She's very neglectful to it! That said the iPhone 13 was only rated at 19 hours to begin with.
 
I got my 69yo mom the 16e (~4000 mAh battery) a few months back and she’s quite happy with it. Her main concern is battery life but she doesn’t want a large, heavy phone. The 16e is just 2g heavier than the Air and is around the same size as the regular 17.

She’s also quite frugal so she actually appreciates that it only costs $6/mo on our family plan without any trade-ins.
 
Age has nothing to do with it, know some in 60’s with max phones some in 80’s with a se.
 
If you don’t need the size of the Air (and you don’t seem to, otherwise you wouldn’t be asking this question), I would go for the 16e. Great battery life, almost no camera bump, and weighs about the same as the Air.


 
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I would go 17 Air for extra screen size and lighter weight distribution.
 
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I don't think it matters much, I'm already older than your mother and seem to be able to use either (I use a iPhone SE 2nd generation - mainly because the extra features of the new phones don't do much for me) so price constraint might be the key issue rather than features. as for battery life my wife charges hers somewhat erratically so they seem to last from 3 to 5 years unless they suffer a catastrophic mishap (iPhone 13 mini) - she has a 16 max (doesn't like the bulk of it the weight is not an issue) now teaching my parents how to use a cell phone - that was a trip
 
Whatever you choose, you’ll want to replace the battery past the 1000 cycle mark as it will likely have dropped below 80% health. That’s a bit below 3 years of charging it once a day and a battery is considered spent at that point. The 17 will give better battery life for the day, but it won’t have a longer lifespan comparatively.

If she doesn’t care about cameras or having more phone as you said, why not consider a battery replacement for her 13 - it’s still a great device that isn’t much less of a phone unless she wants Apple Intelligence.

Consider that the Air is a lot bigger than her current 13 despite being thinner, and it’s also noticeably bigger than the 17/17 Pro.
 
applepotato666 said:
Whatever you choose, you’ll want to replace the battery past the 1000 cycle mark as it will likely have dropped below 80% health. That’s a bit below 3 years of charging it once a day and a battery is considered spent at that point. The 17 will give better battery life for the day, but it won’t have a longer lifespan comparatively.
Click to expand...

I believe 1 cycle is from 0-100%. So one day of 0-100% is 1 cycle and two days of 50% top-up is also considered 1 cycle.

Just as an example, if she ends the day at 40% on the 17 versus 30% on the Air, then after 30 days, the 17 would have used 18 charge cycles while the Air would have used 21 cycles. In this hypothetical example, the 17 will have longer lifespan than the Air (~1600 vs ~1400 days to reach 1000 cycles).
 
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brianj922 said:
Hoping for a little advice for a phone for my 60-something year old mother! She's had an iPhone 13 now for three years and is ready to upgrade. We're trying to decide if she should get an iPhone Air or an iPhone 17. Her biggest complaint about her 13 right now is battery life. I told her how the iPhone Air only has one camera on the back and she said, "that's one more than I need."

My thought is the iPhone Air is quoted for better battery life than the iPhone 13 was originally and obviously her phone's battery now dies quickly partly because it's three years old. I also think she would appreciate how thin and light the air is. My bigger concern is will the air's battery last her three years? Or should she just do an iPhone 17 to be safe. I also weighed the option of a Pro just for the bigger battery but I don't think she needs that much phone.
Click to expand...
hi
if i were you, i would buy her either the 16e or the Air.
the Air would only be if she wants the lightest and thinnest phone. but it is not a small display.
if she can handle the 16e bulk (width) then the 16e is a great choice.
 
My mum is now 75 and we selfishly use her as an opportunity to justify a new phone for us.. so we give her our old phones and then get a newer model.. if you don’t do that I’d just get her the 16E as I think that has all features an older person needs
 
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brianj922 said:
Hoping for a little advice for a phone for my 60-something year old mother! She's had an iPhone 13 now for three years and is ready to upgrade. We're trying to decide if she should get an iPhone Air or an iPhone 17. Her biggest complaint about her 13 right now is battery life. I told her how the iPhone Air only has one camera on the back and she said, "that's one more than I need."

My thought is the iPhone Air is quoted for better battery life than the iPhone 13 was originally and obviously her phone's battery now dies quickly partly because it's three years old. I also think she would appreciate how thin and light the air is. My bigger concern is will the air's battery last her three years? Or should she just do an iPhone 17 to be safe. I also weighed the option of a Pro just for the bigger battery but I don't think she needs that much phone.
Click to expand...
Air seems like a very bad choice here specifically. Battery life of it is optimised, but it's still a relatively small battery that will degrade faster and get drained very fast under certain conditions. Bad reception or unoptimised apps can kill it quick. There are also compromises like very poor speaker output which not very tech savvy people may not be prepared to take or even realise it can be a problem for them. Regular 17 seems like a much smarter choice in this case and an amazing value for your money as well.
 
JamesMay82 said:
My mum is now 75 and we selfishly use her as an opportunity to justify a new phone for us.. so we give her our old phones and then get a newer model.. if you don’t do that I’d just get her the 16E as I think that has all features an older person needs
Click to expand...
My initial thought was that 13 itself is still more than good enough for these needs. Well except as it turns out the battery is degraded... So repairing it may not be worth it, while 16E is gonna be a side-grade and still some money. Barely more and you do get a much better 17 that should last anyone for longer and look more presentable.
 
SmOgER said:
Air seems like a very bad choice here specifically. Battery life of it is optimised, but it's still a relatively small battery that will degrade faster and get drained very fast under certain conditions. Bad reception or unoptimised apps can kill it quick. There are also compromises like very poor speaker output which not very tech savvy people may not be prepared to take or even realise it can be a problem for them. Regular 17 seems like a much smarter choice in this case and an amazing value for your money as well.
Click to expand...
Why do you bash the Air ?
Do you have one ?
Probably not.

Air is perfect for older people (like me) with arthritis.

Battery life is excellent - twice better than the 16 Pro that I traded in.
Air battery lasts 2 days per charge for me.

Base 17 a very good second choice.
 
4sallypat said:
Why do you bash the Air ?
Do you have one ?
Probably not.

Air is perfect for older people (like me) with arthritis.

Battery life is excellent - twice better than the 16 Pro that I traded in.
Air battery lasts 2 days per charge for me.

Base 17 a very good second choice.
Click to expand...
You probably set Air as a new phone and had some app in the background draining battery on 16Pro.

Air has 3149mAh battery with 6.5 display.
16Pro is 3582mAh, 6.3.

Air wouldn't be your typical choice of phone here although it may work for some like yourself. It has small side buttons, weak speakers form over function/utility - the opposite of what you would want for that audience. Also Plus sized screen - ?
 
SmOgER said:
You probably set Air as a new phone and had some app in the background draining battery on 16Pro.

Air has 3149mAh battery with 6.5 display.
16Pro is 3582mAh, 6.3.

Air wouldn't be your typical choice of phone here although it may work for some like yourself. It has small side buttons, weak speakers form over function/utility - the opposite of what you would want for that audience. Also Plus sized screen - ?
Click to expand...
You obviously don't know that the 17 Air has the more efficient A19 Pro chipset plus the new in house C1X modem as well as better battery management systems.

12GB of RAM really helps not to draw power having to recycle instruction sets.

BTW: I copied everything over from the 16 Pro to the 17 Air and have seen a dramatic improvement in frugal power consumption even with all the apps I run daily.

I am getting over 60% battery from the Air at the end of a work day and I can go 2 days without charging - unlike my 16 Pro that got me 30-40% at the end of 1 day.

There is NOTHING on the Air that is a compromise to me.

Wish Apple had come out with the Air after the 14+ that I had.
16 Pro was just too heavy and bulky for my needs and I never used the Pro features which is ironic. Just wanted AOD feature for my EV app.
 
4sallypat said:
You obviously don't know that the 17 Air has the more efficient A19 Pro chipset plus the new in house C1X modem as well as better battery management systems.

12GB of RAM really helps not to draw power having to recycle instruction sets.

BTW: I copied everything over from the 16 Pro to the 17 Air and have seen a dramatic improvement in frugal power consumption even with all the apps I run daily.

I am getting over 60% battery from the Air at the end of a work day and I can go 2 days without charging - unlike my 16 Pro that got me 30-40% at the end of 1 day.

There is NOTHING on the Air that is a compromise to me.

Wish Apple had come out with the Air after the 14+ that I had.
16 Pro was just too heavy and bulky for my needs and I never used the Pro features which is ironic. Just wanted AOD feature for my EV app.
Click to expand...
Chip is not gonna be utilised nearly enough to make a huge difference here. Also it is mostly the exact same family of chips and architecture. The numbers I'm finding is total of 11.5W used on A18Pro to run Geekbench, and 12.1W for A19Pro. Makes sense because architecture is basically exactly the same but A19Pro is clocked higher. You do lose 1 GPU core with Air and that will bring the consumption down, but yeah it's not like there are huge gains to be had here.

They optimised mostly software (and some from their less capable yet likely more efficient modem) to make their quoted numbers possible in a controlled environment, but you can't fight physics:

1758893957872.png

www.tomsguide.com

iPhone Air battery life tested — our results are in

Surprisingly good, but not great
www.tomsguide.com www.tomsguide.com

1758894180304.png

www.tomsguide.com

Apple iPhone 16 Pro review

A bigger display and bigger zoom without a price hike
www.tomsguide.com www.tomsguide.com
 
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