As an iPhone Air owner here’s my honest take: Build quality, screen, and performance are all fantastic. No compromises there.

Compromises are battery, no additional camera lenses. Single speaker. Some niche USB limits.

Battery life is fine overall but on days of heavy use/travel it’s noticeable. Single camera lens is ok but I do miss the telephoto on occasion. Single speaker gets made fun of online, but for any serious listening you’re going to use headphones anyway.

Charge speed via USB is lower than the pros and you can’t do video-out over USB.

I have an iPhone Air and the ONLY issue I've had is accidentally tapping the screen since the screen is so close to the edge of the device. Not battery life, not the speaker, not the single camera. I've only ever had issues with accidental tapping.

Some people seem to get offended if companies make products with different tradeoffs* than they would make.

*Thinner which means less battery.