Apple's $1,199 iPhone 18 Pro is drawing strong reviews for its chip, battery and camera, yet several reviewers say iPhone 17 Pro owners have little reason to upgrade.
Key Points:
- Reviewers praise the A20 Pro chip, longer battery life and a variable-aperture main camera in Apple's iPhone 18 Pro.
- Several say iPhone 17 Pro owners can skip the upgrade, while owners of older models would see real gains.
- The phone starts at $1,199, which is $100 more than the iPhone 17 Pro cost at launch.
iPhone 18 Pro Hardware
Reviews published since mid-September largely agree that the phone's biggest changes sit inside a body that looks nearly unchanged.
Editor Chance Miller measured processor gains of 22% to 27% and graphics gains of 40% to 45% over last year's A19 Pro chip. He called heat management one of the phone's biggest strengths.
The A20 Pro is Apple's first iPhone chip built on a 2-nanometer process, and the company rates the phone for up to 36 hours of video playback, three hours more than its predecessor. Reviews editor Bobby Hellard recorded nearly 27 hours in a looped video test and said he went at least two days between charges.
For the first time on an iPhone, the main camera has a six-blade mechanical aperture, which shifts between f/1.48 and f/4.0 to pull in more light at night or keep more of a scene sharp. Reviewer Cherlynn Low found the visible difference between those two settings subtle until she paired them with manual shutter speeds. Those manual controls are exclusive to the iPhone 18 Pro models.
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iPhone 17 Pro Upgrade Verdict
Several reviewers still advised last year's buyers against upgrading. Low, who scored the phone 9 out of 10, compared it to Apple's old "S" releases, which brought smaller improvements inside a familiar design.
Technology journalist Britta O'Boyle counted the small jump from the iPhone 17 Pro among the phone's drawbacks and advised those owners to keep their money. She and Low both said owners of an iPhone 16 Pro or older would see real gains. Siri AI and other new software features also run on iPhones as old as the iPhone 15 Pro, O'Boyle noted.
The phone also weighs 211 grams, five more than the iPhone 17 Pro.
Apple unveiled the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max on Sept. 9 alongside the iPhone Duo, its first foldable phone. It announced no standard iPhone 18. The Pro starts at $1,199, which is $100 more than the iPhone 17 Pro cost at launch.
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