Review: Apple iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max
There is no iPhone 18 this year. If you were hoping to upgrade your smartphone right now, Apple is only offering the new iPhone 18 Pro models (and a very expensive folding iPhone coming next month). Don’t let that be a reason to spend extra money on a phone you might not need.
Apple hasn’t confirmed the next base-model yet, but the iPhone 18 is expected in spring 2027 alongside a mid-tier iPhone 18e. If you’ve historically been more than satisfied with the base iPhone model, you should absolutely wait to upgrade. Don’t let the hype machine sway you.
That said, if you’re a Pro connoisseur, the iPhone 18 Pro ($1,199) and its bigger sibling, the 18 Pro Max ($1,299), are very good phones, despite the $100 price hike over last year’s Pro models. No, you don’t need to upgrade if you’re coming from an iPhone 17 Pro, 16 Pro, or even a 15 Pro—hold onto your devices for longer!—but Apple’s flagships deliver where it matters, even if they feel eclipsed by the spectacle of the foldable iPhone Duo.
Minor Refresh
Apple says the iPhone 18 Pro models have significant upgrades, but let’s be a little more measured here.
Battery life has been stellar on the Pro models over the last few years, and that remains true here. The Pro Max is the more notable of the two because it packs a denser battery. With average use (around 5 hours of screen-on time), I hovered around 50 percent by the end of the day, and easily made it through day two on a single charge. I spent a little less time with the smaller Pro, but so far it has also comfortably gotten me through a day with around 40 percent left by bedtime. Safe to say, most people will very much enjoy the battery life, but the update doesn’t feel drastic.
Next, there’s the processor: the A20 Pro chip. I hardly run into problems with Apple’s flagship silicon, and that hasn’t changed. The phones run every app fluidly, and my benchmark tests show a surprisingly sizable leap over the A19 Pro in the 17 series.
It runs Control—a AAA game from 2019 ported to iOS earlier this year—decently well. However, aggressive upscaling makes the graphics look grainy, and character movements can feel a little sluggish. (I maxed out the graphics settings.) It’s certainly not perfect, but I still can’t believe I’m playing such a demanding title on an iPhone.
More impressive is Apple’s thermal management on these phones. The company has expanded the vapor chamber’s surface area by three times—the phone’s cooling technology that helps spread heat around—meaning the entire phone felt toasty after close to an hour of gameplay in Control, with no uncomfortable localized hot spots. This larger vapor chamber also lets you game longer before phone’s thermal throttling kicks in and slows everything down.
The iPhone 18 Pro models come with iOS 27 out of the box, which features the all-new Siri AI. Yes, Siri AI is infinitely more capable than any version of Siri that Apple has offered before. It still doesn’t quite have the spark or versatility of other AI assistants, but you might be fine with that. If you throw Siri AI a question, there’s a good chance it can actually give you a satisfactory answer now. Remember that Siri AI and other Apple Intelligence features aren’t exclusive to the latest models, though you do need an iPhone 15 Pro or newer to access them.
The Dynamic Island, the pill-shaped bar housing the selfie camera and Face ID sensors, is noticeably smaller this year. To take full advantage of it, you can now view three live activities—like a DoorDash order status or your Uber ETA—simultaneously inside the Island, up from two. I was navigating in Apple Maps, chatting on a phone call, and had a DoorDash order en route to my home, and it spaced out all of these activities neatly.
Speaking of the iPhone 18 Pro design, I do like the new burgundy color, though I miss brighter, more playful options like last year’s Cosmic Orange. But the real headline feature is almost invisible—embedded into the main camera on the back of the iPhone.
Aperture Priority
Apple is debuting a variable aperture in the iPhone 18 Pro models. This is by no means the first time we’ve seen a smartphone with a variable aperture—Samsung and Huawei both launched phones with the capability years ago. While Samsung abandoned the tech, Huawei and Xiaomi still ship it on their flagships.
What is a variable aperture? Simply put, the aperture is the physical opening that lets light reach the camera sensor. A wider aperture lets in more light and has a lower “f-stop” number, while a narrower aperture restricts light. Most smartphones rely on fixed apertures—the iPhone 17 Pro’s main camera, for example, is locked at f/1.78. A variable aperture gives the lens mechanical blades that physically expand or contract in a circular shape, adjusting how much light hits the sensor. Apple gives you four f-stops to select from: f/1.48, f/1.78, f/2.8, and f/4.
Open the aperture to f/1.48 on the iPhone 18 Pro and more light floods in, delivering cleaner low-light shots and faster Night Mode captures. This also creates a real optical bokeh—the soft blurred background effect phone makers have spent years simulating with computational Portrait modes. Step it down to f/4, this blur recedes, keeping more of the scene and background in crisp focus. All of this can be very confusing for people unfamiliar with these camera terms, which is why Apple defaults the aperture to “Auto.”
I love it. I shoot manual on my mirrorless camera, so I immediately took to the new customization features in the Camera app to show Shutter Speed and Lens Aperture as easy-to-access settings. Shooting at f/1.48 delivers a nice bokeh effect—especially in low light—so I stopped using Apple’s Portrait mode altogether. (Some parts of the image may look less sharp than on an iPhone 17 Pro because the plane of focus is narrower.) Apple will point out that Portrait mode is still useful, as you can always add more bokeh post-capture.
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Move to f/4 for group shots when you want everyone in the frame to be in focus. (Or if you want a very fun starburst effect with light sources!) As you change between the four aperture settings, you can see the blades moving on the main camera—it’s very cool. In auto mode, the camera largely sticks to f/1.78, or f/1.48 in low light. It chooses the other two apertures for specific, usually brighter, scenes.
I have also enjoyed the ability to adjust the camera’s shutter speed. Yes, you can already do this with a third-party camera app, but now it’s baked in! With a one-second shutter, you can capture some fun shutter drag to accentuate motion in a photo. However, you’ll definitely need to buy a neutral density filter for super-bright scenes to balance exposure. It’s fun to play around with.
I compared several of the 18 Pro’s photos with shots from Google’s Pixel 11 Pro, and I do have to note that the iPhone tends to over-brighten scenes that should be very dark. So much so that it can misrepresent the dark mood you might be chasing. The Pixel tended to preserve more of those shadows, though it delivered more lifted blacks that made the image appear more matte. The iPhone can also struggle with backlit scenes, more so than the Pixel.
Apple has added texture and grain control to its Photographic Styles, and this is a fun element to sink your teeth into and explore. Phone makers have realized that ultra-clean, sharp, “perfect” shots are perhaps not what most people want, and these stylings—like the new Camera Looks on Pixel phones—offer a new degree of “authenticity.”
The iPhone 18 Pro’s camera system is fun without feeling overwhelming. You can pick and choose what degree of control you want, tweak Photographic Styles to your tastes, and add more depth after the fact, whether it’s for videos or photos. Who knew people liked having more control? There aren’t any sweeping improvements to the camera lenses or sensors, but this is a system that shutterbugs will love to experiment with, and that’s what the Pro iPhone is all about.