Early reviews of the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max were released today by select tech websites and YouTube channels, before the devices begin arriving to customers and launch in stores this Friday, September 18.
While the iPhone 17 Pro models received a major design overhaul last year, the iPhone 18 Pro models look similar overall and benefit from a set of more incremental year-over-year upgrades related to cameras, battery life, and performance.
With the new A20 Pro chip, the first 2nm chip in a smartphone, Apple said the iPhone 18 Pro models deliver up to 20% faster CPU performance and up to 40% faster graphics performance compared to the A19 Pro chip in the iPhone 17 Pro.
GizmodoRaymond Wong of Raymond Wong compared the A20 Pro chip:
I ran the Geekbench 7 CPU benchmark on the iPhone 18 Pro and compared the results with the iPhone 17 Pro. Both phones ran the official iOS 27. The iPhone 18 Pro scored 4,027 in single-core and 11,540 in multi-core, and the iPhone 17 Pro scored 3,258 in single-core and 9,167 in multi-core. This equates to an increase of 24% for single-core performance and 26% for multi-core.
A revamped vapor chamber cooling system in the iPhone 18 Pro models is three times larger than that in the iPhone 17 Pro models, for better heat dissipation. This allows the A20 Pro to achieve optimal, sustained performance for longer.
Wong on the thermal management of the iPhone 18 Pro:
I don’t think the iPhone 18 Pros got hot once doing anything normal that would cause it to heat up. Even shooting 4K resolution videos at 60fps in the heat wave that raged in Cupertino during Apple’s launch event couldn’t overheat it.
Both iPhone 18 Pro models have longer battery life than the previous generation, especially the iPhone 18 Pro Max. Based on Apple’s offline video playback metric, the iPhone 18 Pro Max has up to 15% longer battery life than the iPhone 17 Pro Max. A fast charge to 50% now takes 15 minutes, up from 20 minutes.
Tom’s guide released its typical battery life test, in which the iPhone 18 Pro Max achieved about half an hour more battery life than the iPhone 17 Pro Max:
- OnePlus15: 25 hours and 13 minutes
- iPhone 18 ProMax: 18 hours and 27 minutes
- iPhone 17 ProMax: 17 hours and 54 minutes
- Galaxy S26 Ultra: 16 hours and 40 minutes
- iPhone 18 Pro: 16 hours and 17 minutes
- iPhone 17 Pro: 15 hours and 21 minutes
The iPhone 18 Pro models have a slightly smaller Dynamic Island at the top of the screen that supports up to three Live Activities at a time, instead of two.
9to5MacChance Miller’s on a related change from Dynamic Island:
In my testing, what I liked most was what happens when two live activities run at the same time. Thanks to the smaller dynamic island, the second live activity that appears on the right side can now display more information.
The popular flight tracking app Flighty showed this:
The 48-megapixel Fusion main camera on the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max has a variable aperture, allowing you to adjust the amount of light that hits the image sensor for better control over depth of field. Apple says this upgrade will enable improved low-light photography and sharper details on the back of group photos.
Variable aperture options include ƒ/1.48, ƒ/1.8, ƒ/2.8, and ƒ/4.0.
PetaPixelJaron Schneider on variable aperture:
I think Apple’s choice not to lock us into a wider aperture was very smart, as sharpness takes a hit when shooting wide aperture. We noticed that while the center was about as sharp as last year’s iPhone 17 Pro when shooting at night, the edges quickly faded – not unusual for a wide-open lens, even on a full-size camera. When you’re that wide open, image quality tends to drop without a bunch of extra glass elements to counteract it. However, the image is sharp at f/1.8 and sharpness peaks at f/2.8. At f/4, sharpness decreases again, this time due to diffraction, but not substantially. From sharpest to softest, it goes: f/2.8, f/1.8, f/4 and f/1.48.
In the Camera app, iPhone 18 Pro users can manually adjust shutter speed, white balance, and aperture, and there’s an option to use a histogram. These new “Pro controls” are exclusive to the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
CNETPatrick Holland from on Pro Orders:
I appreciate these controls, as I did when they appeared on Android phones. My big criticism is how it’s accessed: I use the lens aperture and shutter speed controls quite a bit, but they’re located at the bottom of the camera’s control drawer. When shooting one-handed, I have to press and then expand the drawer to reach the bottom. I would like to be able to customize the position of the icons like I can with the phone’s control center settings. Also, why can’t I assign any of these to the camera control button on the side of the phone? Imagine focusing on a video recording by swiping your finger.
For 5G and LTE, the iPhone 18 Pro is equipped with Apple’s second-generation C2 cellular modem worldwide, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max has the C2 modem in all countries except the United States, where it is reportedly still equipped with a Qualcomm modem, perhaps for contractual reasons. Apple said the C2 modem delivers “significantly faster downloads” compared to its previous C1X modem while consuming 15% less power. In the United States, the C2 is Apple’s first modem to support mmWave 5G.
We haven’t yet found any reviews testing the C2 modem scientifically, but anecdotally most reviewers found the 5G performance to be very adequate.
Color options for iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max: classic silver, the return of black, and new special Burgundy and Glacier finishes.
In our opinion, there’s no major reason to upgrade to the iPhone 18 Pro models if you’re coming from an iPhone 17 Pro or maybe even an iPhone 16 Pro. If you have an iPhone 14 Pro or newer, however, upgrading to the iPhone 18 Pro is worth it to catch up on years of improvements and upgrade to a model that supports the new and improved Siri, which is really much better and is available on the iPhone 15 Pro and newer.
That’s the reality with most iPhone launches these days: the devices remain great, but the year-over-year upgrades can kind of feel “meh.”
The edge‘s Allison Johnson described the iPhone 18 Pro as “excellent and totally iterative.”
And there’s also the iPhone Duo to consider this year.
woozadCherlynn Low from:
In the shadow of the iPhone Duo, the iPhone 18 Pro certainly looks like an “S” device. But the S-year iPhones were never bad iPhones. They just weren’t exciting. Likewise, while none of the iPhone 18 Pro’s latest features are things you should spend money on, they’re certainly a significant improvement for anyone with an iPhone 16 Pro or earlier. Of all the iPhones you can buy right now, it has the best camera setup, and anyone with even the slightest interest in manual photography will appreciate the new variable aperture controls.
