The iPhone Air now costs £1,099 on Apple's UK store. Walk into Currys or Argos and the same phone, same 256GB, is £799. That is a £300 gap on a phone Apple has not changed in a year, and none of the pages at the top of Google for "iPhone Air" will tell you about it. Apple's own page leads with thinness, Wikipedia quotes the American launch price, and the retailer listings just list.
So I went through the numbers properly: what Apple changed on 9 September, why the 1TB model got hit three times harder than the rest, how the iPhone Air now compares with the iPhone 17 and iPhone 18 Pro, and who should actually buy one.
What happened to the iPhone Air price in the UK
On 9 September, the day of the iPhone 18 Pro event, Apple raised the price of every older iPhone it still sells. MacRumors reported the rise as a flat $100 across the iPhone 16, iPhone 17, iPhone Air and iPhone 17e, and in the UK the headline figure was a flat £100 too. I covered the wider picture in my piece on the iPhone 17 price increase in the UK.
What the headline hides is the storage tiers. Here is the iPhone Air at launch, using the September 2025 UK prices TechRadar listed, against Apple's UK buy page this morning:
- 256GB: £999 at launch, £1,099 now
- 512GB: £1,199 at launch, £1,299 now
- 1TB: £1,399 at launch, £1,699 now
The 256GB and 512GB models went up by £100, which is 10.01% and 8.34% on my arithmetic. The 1TB model went up by £300, a 21.44% rise. It is the only iPhone Air that did not get the flat £100, and I have not seen anyone in the UK point it out.
Why the 1TB iPhone Air got hit hardest
Apple has not explained it, but the shape of the new price list gives it away. At launch the iPhone Air went up in even £200 steps. Now the step from 256GB to 512GB is £200 and the step from 512GB to 1TB is £400.
Divide those by the storage you gain and both come out at exactly 78.1p per extra gigabyte. That is my own arithmetic, and it is the same per-gigabyte rate I found on the base iPad and the iPad mini. Apple appears to be pricing storage at a fixed rate per gigabyte, which hurts most at the top of the range, where you are buying 512GB at a time. Tim Cook has already blamed memory and storage costs for Apple's price rises this year, so it fits.
Where to buy the iPhone Air for less than Apple
The retailers did not follow Apple up. When I checked this morning, Currys and Argos had the iPhone Air SIM-free at the same prices:
- 256GB: £799, which is £300 or 27.30% under Apple
- 512GB: £999, which is £300 or 23.09% under Apple
- 1TB: £1,199, which is £500 or 29.43% under Apple
Those percentages are mine. Notice that each retailer price is exactly £200 under the original launch price, so the high street has been discounting from the old list price while Apple has been raising the new one. At Currys several 512GB and 1TB colours were out of stock, while the 256GB in Space Black and Sky Blue was available for delivery.
The retailer storage step is also £200 at both levels, so the 1TB upgrade costs 39.1p per gigabyte at Argos against Apple's 78.1p. If you need 1TB, buying it from Apple costs you £500 for nothing.
For context, this is not the lowest the iPhone Air has been. Amazon UK sold the 256GB model for £699 in March, and Tom's Guide covered that deal at the time. So £799 is a good price rather than a once-in-a-year one, and it is worth setting a price alert if you are not in a hurry.
Is there a refurbished iPhone Air?
Not from Apple yet. Apple's UK refurbished store currently lists iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models, with no iPhone Air. That matters, because Apple's refurbished iPhones come with a new battery and outer shell, as I explained in my look at Apple Refurbished UK. Third-party refurbished listings exist, but with new units at £799 on the high street, I would not take the risk on a used battery to save a small amount.
iPhone Air vs iPhone 17: the gap depends on where you shop
At Apple, the iPhone Air is £1,099 and the iPhone 17 is £899. That is £200 more, or 22.25%, for the thinner phone. On 1 October Amazon UK had the 256GB iPhone 17 at £799, the same as the iPhone Air at Currys and Argos today. Shop around and the price gap between them disappears completely.
So the question becomes which phone you would rather have at the same money. Here is what Apple's own comparison page says:
- Thickness: 5.64mm for the Air, 7.95mm for the iPhone 17
- Weight: 165g against 177g
- Display: 6.5-inch against 6.3-inch, both with ProMotion
- Chip: A19 Pro in the Air, A19 in the iPhone 17
- Rear cameras: a single 48MP Fusion camera on the Air, 48MP main and 48MP ultra wide on the iPhone 17
- Battery: up to 27 hours of video playback on the Air, up to 30 hours on the iPhone 17
The iPhone 17 gives you the second camera and three more hours of video. The Air gives you the bigger screen, the faster chip, and a phone that disappears in a pocket. Neither is wrong, but you are no longer paying extra for the Air's design if you buy it from a retailer.
The eSIM catch
The iPhone Air has no physical SIM tray at all, and Apple's page confirms it activates only using eSIM. EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three all support eSIM, but some smaller networks and older contracts need a call or an app to switch over. If you hop between UK SIMs or use a physical local SIM when travelling, check your network before you buy.
iPhone Air vs iPhone 18 Pro at Apple's prices
This is where Apple's own price list gets awkward. The iPhone 18 Pro starts at £1,199, only £100 more than the iPhone Air's new £1,099. On my arithmetic that is a 9.10% step for a telephoto camera, the A20 Pro chip and up to 34 hours of video playback, against the Air's 27.
At launch the iPhone Air sat £100 below the iPhone 17 Pro, but the Pro had a bigger, heavier body to sell against it. Now the gap is the same £100, and the newer phone is the more expensive one. If you are buying from Apple and your budget already reaches £1,099, I would struggle to tell you to stop there rather than spend another £100.
Buy from a retailer and the picture flips. At £799 the Air is £400 under the iPhone 18 Pro, and that is a gap worth thinking about.
Should you wait for the iPhone Air 2?
Probably not. Back in November 2025, The Information reported that Apple had pushed the second-generation Air back to spring 2027 so it could add an ultra wide camera. That is a report rather than anything Apple has confirmed, and it was not part of September's event.
Even if it arrives on that schedule, it will be priced from Apple's new list, not the old one. Given that the current model is £300 under Apple's price on the high street today, the realistic choice is between a discounted Air now and a full-price Air 2 next year.
If you are paying monthly or adding AppleCare
Apple quotes the 256GB iPhone Air at £36.63 a month over 30 months on its 0% Flexible Finance Account, which totals £1,098.90. That is exactly the iPhone 17's 512GB monthly figure, which tells you how far up the range the Air now sits. If you are weighing Apple's finance against leasing, I compared Apple Upgrade and the old iPhone Upgrade Programme.
If you buy the Air from a retailer, you can still add Apple's cover separately. Before you do, my breakdown of AppleCare One UK pricing is worth a read, because one plan covering several devices can work out cheaper than AppleCare+ on the phone alone.
Who should buy the iPhone Air
Buy it if weight and thickness are the things you notice every day, you are happy with one rear camera, and you can get it at £799. At that price it is the same money as an iPhone 17 and the most distinctive iPhone Apple sells.
Skip it at Apple's £1,099. The iPhone 17 is £200 less with a second camera, and the iPhone 18 Pro is only £100 more with three cameras and much better battery life.
And do not buy the 1TB model from Apple under any circumstances. £1,699 for an iPhone Air is a price set by a storage formula, not by what the phone is worth, and Argos will sell you the same phone for £500 less.
iPhone Air FAQ
How much is the iPhone Air in the UK?
On Apple's UK store it is £1,099 for 256GB, £1,299 for 512GB and £1,699 for 1TB, after the 9 September 2026 rise. Currys and Argos were selling it for £799, £999 and £1,199 when I checked on 5 October 2026.
Did the iPhone Air go up in price?
Yes. Apple added £100 to the 256GB and 512GB models and £300 to the 1TB model on 9 September 2026. The 1TB iPhone Air went from £1,399 to £1,699, a 21.44% rise on my arithmetic.
Is the iPhone Air worth it in 2026?
At a retailer price of £799, yes, if you value a thin and light phone over a second camera. At Apple's £1,099 it is hard to justify when the iPhone 18 Pro costs £100 more.
My take
The iPhone Air is a better buy today than it was at launch, but only if you ignore Apple. The high street has it at £200 under its original price, while Apple has pushed it up and quietly charged 1TB buyers an extra £300 on top of the headline rise.
If you want one, buy the 256GB at £799 from a retailer you trust. If you are already on Apple's store with £1,099 in mind, spend the extra £100 on the iPhone 18 Pro instead.
Source: Apple Raises Prices of iPhone 16, iPhone 17, iPhone Air, and iPhone 17e, MacRumors. UK prices read from apple.com/uk, Currys and Argos on 5 October 2026; all percentages are my own arithmetic.
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