The iPhone 18 Pro is more powerful than some laptops

After Apple’s September 2026 launch event, it was the iPhone Duo, Apple’s first foldable, that got the most attention, and there wasn’t much fanfare about the iPhone 18 and iPhone 18 Pro. Some users were disappointed with the new pro-level iPhone. Even though the battery of the iPhone 18 Pro line beats that of its predecessor, the update is very similar to that of its predecessor. But benchmark testing of the A20 Pro chip has strengthened the profile of the new range, delivering excellent performance.

According to Geekbench 6 benchmark tests conducted during our iPhone 18 Pro review, the Apple A20 Pro chip that powers the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro scored 4,735 in single-core and 12,545 in multi-core. Running this same benchmark for the previous incarnation of Apple’s mobile chip, the A19 Pro, the scores were 3,800 and 10,000 for single-core and multi-core performance, respectively. The company touted the new chip as the fastest mobile processor and claimed it offered a 20% performance improvement over the previous model.

Some phones consistently beat older laptops in performance tests, and the A20 Pro does that too. With its 4.93 GHz clock speed and benchmark scores, it can compete with some recent computer chips, including the Apple M5 Max, at least in single-core operation. It also delivers similar results to the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 desktop processor. With the A20 Pro chip, Apple has moved to a new 2nm manufacturing process, while redesigning the processor with two new super cores and four new efficiency cores to improve performance and power efficiency.

Although the A20 Pro chip may be less powerful in multi-core operations than the Apple M5 Max, it takes the cake in single-core performance according to Geekbench 6 benchmarks. This isn’t really a surprise given that the M5 Max’s clock speed is 4.61 GHz. The iPhone 18 Pro Max being technically faster in single-core mode than the 2026 MacBook Pro is an impressive feat, but the phone is much more powerful than the MacBook Neo, which sports the older A18 Pro chip. It looks like the iPhone 18 Pro Max will be even more powerful than the Neo 2 – Apple’s next laptop which is expected to feature the A19 Pro chip.

As a clear answer to the M5 chips that were a bit lacking in real-world performance, it’s fair to mention Qualcomm’s SD X2E-94-100 (X2 for short). It has a single-core score of 3,800 and a multi-core score of 22,750. So, Apple’s A20 Pro chip blows it out of the water in terms of single-core performance. The new iPhone’s single-core performance is better than a host of recently released X2 laptops. The list includes the popular Asus ZenBook A16, Microsoft Surface and HP OmniBook Ultra 14.

There’s no need to mention older laptops, because even the Apple 17 Pro Max was technically more powerful than a laptop you could buy a few years ago. This just goes to show how quickly technology is advancing. Whether this will force us to buy new laptops remains to be seen – a lot depends on whether users will notice a huge difference in performance compared to Apple’s latest chipset.