Apple iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max: Two-Minute Review

If the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max were a reinvention of the flagship iPhone, the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max see Apple carrying the flagship-iPhone baton forward with few, if any, missteps.

I’ve spent the last week with a Glacier iPhone 18 Pro Max and a Burgundy iPhone 18 Pro — both colors are striking new additions to Apple’s iPhone color palette — and Apple has mostly stuck to last year's winning formula, while updating key aspects of the experience to push things forward.

While the main camera array still carries the same 48-megapixel count across the telephoto, ultra-wide, and main lenses, the arrival of Pro controls in the Camera app breathes new life into the photo-taking experience, letting you get seriously creative whenever you want to.

You can also take advantage of the new variable aperture on the main 48-megapixel Fusion camera to shoot across ƒ/1.48, ƒ/1.8, ƒ/2.8, or ƒ/4.0, and capture unique visuals, including starburst effects from lights. Of course, you can also choose to let the Camera app take control, and in general it’ll capture a well-balanced shot that you can still edit after the fact.

All in all, after taking hundreds of photos and shooting dozens of videos, I’m impressed with the level of detail the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max can deliver. Some images match what you’ll get from the previous-generation Pros, but these iPhones can also deliver even better-looking images and video, especially when you take control.

Under the hood is Apple’s first 2-nanometer chip in an iPhone, the A20 Pro, and while it doesn’t run laps around the previous A19 Pro, or the chip before that one, its CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine do an excellent job of handling general iOS tasks, as well as more advanced AI features, including keeping Siri AI chugging along where it's available and powering Apple Intelligence features in Photos, such as Clean Up and Reframing. It also ensures that third-party experiences run well, and I’ll be shocked if you encounter noticeable slowdowns anywhere.

The iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max can easily keep pace with any of the other best modern smartphones, and I suspect they’ll keep doing so for years. You can again choose between a punchy, vibrant, and crisp 6.3-inch or 6.9-inch Super Retina XDR display, and that’s the main difference between the two Pro iPhones, as Apple maintains feature parity across the lineup.

Another meaningful improvement is in battery life, with the iPhone 18 Pro lasting longer than the 17 Pro Max according to Apple, while it says the 18 Pro Max establishes a new iPhone battery-life record. Add in the improved thermal management, smaller Dynamic Island, and arrival of Siri AI, and there’s a lot of refinement here beyond the cameras and processor.

And that’s ultimately what the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max feel like to me: a refinement of an already excellent Pro iPhone, rather than a reinvention. If the iPhone 17 Pro generation was about Apple changing the formula, the iPhone 18 Pro is about taking that formula and making it better across the board, without messing with what worked.

It’s not night and day across the board, and if you’re coming from an iPhone 17 Pro or 17 Pro Max, you probably don’t need to upgrade. The A20 Pro feels largely neck and neck with the A19 Pro in daily use, the displays remain familiar, and the overall design is essentially unchanged. But I would bet that some iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max owners will want to make the jump anyway, particularly for the camera improvements. The combination of the variable aperture and, finally, a genuinely customizable Camera app with Pro controls enables a level of user input that I’ve wanted Apple to bake into the iPhone for years.

If you’re holding onto an iPhone 15 Pro, 15 Pro Max, or anything older, the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max represent a much more substantial generational leap. You’re getting bigger and better displays, way-improved cameras, better battery life, a faster and more future-ready chip, improved thermals, and a modern, durable design that Apple has now had a year to refine.

And that’s the thing about the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max: you don’t need any one of these upgrades to completely reinvent how you use an iPhone. Taken together, though, they make for a seriously capable flagship that feels ready for the next several years.

Apple iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max review: Price and Availability

• Starts at $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,099 for 256GB
• Both Pro models now offer 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB options
• On sale September 18, with preorders open now

Apple made the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max official at its September 9, 2026, ‘Surprise and Shine’ special event; preorders are open now, with an on-sale date of September 18.

The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 in the US, £1,199 in the UK, and AU$2,099 in Australia, and the iPhone 18 Pro Max at $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,299, respectively. That means they come with a $100 / £100 / AU$100 increase in starting price over the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, while, like last year’s Pros, starting at 256GB of storage. Both can be configured with 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB of storage, with the latter now an option on both Pro models. You can choose from Burgundy, Glacier, Silver, and Black.

Both phones officially go on sale on September 18, 2026.

• Value score: 4 / 5

Apple iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max review: Design

• The 18 Pro keeps the 17 Pro’s aluminum body and camera plateau
• Burgundy and Glacier colors bring some welcome personality to the Pro lineup
• A new vapor chamber and Nanotwin copper help keep things cooler under load

With the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, Apple chose to dramatically reinvent the Pro-series iPhone's design. It swapped the left-side bump that housed the main camera system for a plateau that stretches across the back, went back to aluminum, and focused heavily on durability.

Given that, the odds of a major redesign for the next-gen Pro phones were slim, and the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max stick with a design that not only scored well in our reviews, but also won over a wider audience. I've been switching between the iPhone 17 Pro Max in Cosmic Orange and the iPhone Air for the last year.

The iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max stick with the aluminum body and camera plateau from last year's models. That might seem like a safe choice, considering that the iPhone Duo is launching alongside these candy-bar-style phones in October, but it also shows Apple pushing forward with a working design — essentially the same trajectory it took from the iPhone 16 to the iPhone 17.

Still, to help the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max stand out from the crowd — and just to let people know you’re rocking one of Apple’s new phones, rather than a 17 Pro or 17 Pro Max — there are two entirely new colors, and I can't decide which is my favorite, and luckily I've been testing both. Burgundy is sort of a dark-red wine color that evokes a sense of high-class sleekness, while Glacier, which the event invite teased, is a mix of blue and silver that looks decidedly fresh. These are the two colors that pop, both much more muted than Cosmic Orange, but also a bit more vibrant than the Dark Navy from 2025. Those two join silver and the first ‘true’ black Pro model. It shows that Apple is listening, and I'm all for more Pro colors.

The dimensions are the same year over year. The iPhone 18 Pro measures 150 x 71.9 x 8.75mm, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max comes in at 163.4 x 78 x 8.75mm — exactly the same footprint as their predecessors. The button placement is also identical, so if you've spent the last year with an iPhone 17 Pro or 17 Pro Max, there's nothing new to learn here: power and Camera Control are on the right, with the Action Button, and volume up and volume down on the left. Both phones are a little heavier than last year’s: the 18 Pro weighs 211 grams, up from 206 grams, while the 18 Pro Max jumps to 249 grams from 233 grams.

Even with the slight weight increase, both the 6.3-inch Pro and 6.9-inch Pro Max feel comfortable in the hand and are pretty well balanced. The Pro Max is still very much a two-handed phone for me, especially for texting, while the Pro is still the smaller, more portable option.

Then there's Ceramic Shield 2, which is sticking around. Judging by the coatings on my iPhone Air and 17 Pro Max, it's done wonders at preventing micro-abrasions and front-screen scratches, and even means that drops don’t elicit a gasp, since after a year my screens are still unblemished. In my few days testing the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, I haven't seen a scratch on the front or abrasions on the back, which is both aluminum and glass.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max was known for getting warm, or at least warmer to the touch, during more intense activities such as gaming or long content shoots, and Apple has looked to address that issue with some new cooling tech under the hood. There's a new thermal architecture inside, which consists of a vapor chamber, the positioning of which has been tweaked, and which offers three times the surface area to better dissipate heat. Apple has paired this with an industry-first Nanotwin copper material, which is baked into the display plate to help keep that surface cool.

For the most part, this has kept the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max cool during my testing. They can still get warm, but nowhere near as warm as the 17 Pro or 17 Pro Max, and the heat is more spread out when it does become noticeable. I noticed it mostly heating up during longer capture sessions, especially when swapping between photo and video, but even then the heat felt more spread out and better regulated, and dissipated more quickly.

It's a subtle change, but one that matters when you're using the phone heavily. And that's really the story of the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max design: Apple hasn't reinvented the wheel this year. Instead, it's taken the design it introduced with the iPhone 17 Pro and refined the parts that matter — durability, thermals, finishes, and how the phone feels during sustained use.

• Design score: 5 / 5

Apple iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max review: Display

• Two sizes, same experience across both
• A new anti-reflective coating joins 3,000 nits peak brightness and120Hz ProMotion
• Smaller Dynamic Island with room for three Live Activities

Your main decision when choosing between the 18 Pro and the 18 Pro Max comes down to size, as there’s feature parity between the two, and that’s a good thing. The iPhone 18 Pro features a 6.3-inch display, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max has a 6.9-inch display. Both are punchy, vibrant, and a joy to look at and use for any task, be it FaceTiming with friends or loved ones, typing out comms, reading an email, browsing the web, scrolling your photos, watching video, or just navigating iOS elements.

Much of that comes from the fact that these are Super Retina XDR displays, which are OLED and always-on, meaning that even when the phone is locked, the screen dims down to still show you the time, widgets, and even notifications. Like the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max before them, the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max have a buttery-smooth 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate and top out at a maximum brightness of 3,000 nits. It’s unlikely the phone will always run at that brightness, but suffice to say that even on a bright, humid, sunny day — and I mean it was really beating down — in Orlando, Florida, enjoying the sights, sounds, and rides of Disney World, I had no issues viewing content on the screen.

There’s also a new anti-reflective coating on the display, and while this isn’t a full Nano-texture coating like you’ll find on some of Apple’s other displays and the folding iPhone Duo, it’s a noticeable step up when it comes to reducing reflections and smudges. It’s particularly useful outdoors, where fewer reflections mean less fighting with the screen to see what’s actually on it. Compared to older iPhones, like the iPhone 16 and earlier models, this feels like a much bigger display upgrade.

There is one thing that really did catch my eye, though, and it’s the key change with the display: Apple has shrunk the Dynamic Island down on the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max. It’s about the size of an extra-strength Tylenol liquid gel, and much less of a distraction at the top, if you could even call it that. In addition to the reduced size, the other big change is to Live Activities — the Dynamic Island can now support three, rather than two. So maybe it’s directions, music playback, and a timer, or if you’re on a flight, maybe it’s United Airlines showing the seat number, Flighty counting down your arrival time, and music playing in Music or Spotify.

I’m not saying you need to rush out to upgrade just for this if you have a 17 Pro or 17 Pro Max — although that might be the case for the cameras or battery life — but if you’re a fan of using this space, it’s definitely a super-functional quality-of-life upgrade.

• Display score: 5 / 5

Apple iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max review: Cameras

• Pro controls finally arrive to let you adjust aperture, shutter speed, white balance, and more.
• The 48MP Fusion main camera aperture is adjustable from ƒ/1.48 to ƒ/4.0
• Better detail, strong low-light performance, and excellent 4x and 8x zoom

Alright, buckle in, because while the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max still boasts 48-megapixel main, 48-megapixel ultra-wide, and a 48-megapixel telephoto camera — similar to the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max setup — things are a bit different across the board, and especially in one specific area.

For starters, if you’ve been wanting Apple to bake more controls into the Camera app, your wish has been granted. There are now Pro controls that let you adjust the aperture, shutter speed, and white balance for the main camera, alongside a host of other tools, including improved Photographic Styles, with more granular controls, and the ability to bring up a histogram.

You can also customize which of these controls live at the top of your screen, in a similar fashion to designing your perfect home screen or Control Center. Changes to shutter speed and aperture are persistent if you have that enabled in Settings for preserving camera settings, but you can’t design exact presets with a specific aperture or shutter speed, although — hint, Apple — that would be a nice upgrade.

Photographic Styles are also getting more flexible. You can still pick from the expected presets, but Apple now gives you more granular control over things like texture, including adjustments specifically aimed at skin. Push it in the right direction, and you can get smoother, more glowy-looking portraits, though there are times when that comes at the expense of some detail, particularly in lower-light areas of the frame.

That’s where I think Apple’s approach makes sense: the default Auto processing generally aims to strike a balance between detail, exposure, color, and skin tones, so you don’t have to think about any of this. But if you want to get more creative, the tools are there — and you can still make adjustments after the fact, rather than having to nail everything before you hit the shutter button.

Here’s a look at the camera specs, right before the big change that has to do with the main lens:

• 48MP Fusion main with variable aperture of ƒ/1.48, ƒ/1.8, ƒ/2.8, or ƒ/4.0
• 48MP Fusion ultra-wide at ƒ/2.2
• 48MP Fusion telephoto at ƒ/2.8

With these, you can still shoot at 0.5x, 1x at 24mm, 28mm, or 35mm, 2x for a digital crop with optical-quality results, 4x (as a digital sensor crop), or an optical 8x, and stretch all the way up to 40x digital zoom.

The big change, though, is that the main lens — the one your iPhone is set to by default — has a variable aperture for the first time ever on an iPhone. With a fine eye, or another camera pointed at it, you can actually see the lens aperture adjusting, getting wider or narrower to let more or less light in. It also swaps the previous main aperture of ƒ/1.78 on 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, as the 18 Pro’ now offering ƒ/1.48, ƒ/1.8, ƒ/2.8, and ƒ/4.0.

You can choose to ignore this new control, as well as the ability to adjust white balance or shutter speed, and let the iPhone and its image-processing pipeline automatically engage what it believes are the optimum settings to capture a great shot. And in my testing so far, it succeeds here, offering on-par quality with the iPhone 17 Pro or 17 Pro Max, but mostly punching above those phones with better details, more natural blurring and focus points, and excellent highlights.

The image-processing pipeline has also been updated. Performance still feels very much in line with what I’ve come to expect from an iPhone, but images are more detailed and sharper throughout, though at times they can pack a little more punch with colors thanks to some update on the image pipeline. Especially for 4x and 8x shots, I’ve found that these preserve more details generation over generation. It’s not a dramatic departure from the iPhone look, but there’s a clear refinement here in how the phone handles detail and brings a scene to life.

The 4x and 8x zoom continued to surprise me with how much detail they can deliver, namely with the former being a sensor crop and the latter being optical. Whether I’m picking out details around Disney World’s parks or zooming in on something far away, the results stay impressively detailed without looking like a processed digital crop.

The variable aperture gives the main camera more flexibility, especially when you want to control how much light comes in, or how much of a subject is separated from the background. The wider maximum aperture also helps make this excellent main camera even more versatile in lower-light scenarios, and because it’s the camera your iPhone defaults to, it’s likely the one you’ll navigate to first.

The Most Magical Place on Earth deserves the best camera on a phone on Earth, right? So I’ve done the bulk of my iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max camera testing around the Disney World parks in Orlando, and taken plenty of additional shots in New Jersey, California, and even up in the sky from the windows of planes. That means I’ve tested the cameras in just about every condition I could throw at them, from the beating Florida sun to nighttime attractions, indoor spaces, moving subjects, and everything in between.

I’ve been putting the low-light performance to the test around Disney World, too, including taking plenty of shots after the sun went down. Even in Auto mode, I found the iPhone 18 Pro could deliver detail-packed, appropriately lit shots in less time, with Night mode often requiring less time to capture a shot than on previous generations. This comes down to about one to three seconds, versus five to eight seconds for processing. And that means less waiting around for the camera to finish its exposure and, more importantly, less chance of a moving subject turning into a blurry mess. You can accomplish longer exposures if the iPhone detects it’s in a tripod as well.

When I wanted more control, though, I could jump in and adjust the shutter speed and aperture when shooting at 1x or 2x zoom, letting me decide how I wanted to capture the scene, rather than leaving it entirely up to the iPhone. If you’re willing to take the time to dive into the controls, you can really customize how the iPhone captures a scene, and get much more creative with your shots.

For instance, I shot the Magic of Disney Animation building at night at ƒ/1.48 and 1/30s, deliberately opening up the aperture and slowing the shutter to let in more light. The result is a detail-packed shot with rich colors and a dramatic nighttime look, as you can see above. It’s still an iPhone, so you can absolutely leave everything on Auto and get a great photo, but when you want to take more control, the tools are there to help you capture the shot you have in your mind’s eye.

The same Pro controls carry over to video, giving you more control over how you capture moving footage. There’s also a new auto-tracking feature, and I’ve found it particularly useful for fast-moving subjects.

I put it to the test at Disney World with Slinky Dog Dash, capturing the coaster as it came down the sloping track. The iPhone did a great job of keeping the front of the coaster in focus while the people blurred with the speed of the ride, and the lighting on the track moving alongside the vehicles stayed remarkably clear. The shot came out incredibly well, and it really shows what the iPhone can do with a fast-moving subject.

The 18-megapixel front-facing camera is essentially unchanged from last year, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the Center Stage camera still uses that clever square sensor, letting you rotate between portrait and landscape framing without physically turning the iPhone. Better yet, it will still automatically adjust to fit more people in the shot.

The cameras are easily the most exciting part of the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, and as in years and generations past, it’s a big reason why folks go Pro. You get three capable shooters, and the ability to step back or step closer, depending on what you’re trying to capture. This year, Apple is giving you more control, and adding a genuinely neat upgrade to the main camera. The choice is ultimately yours: you can stick with Auto and still capture great shots, or make your mark with adjustments and shoot more intentionally.

Yes, third-party apps have offered many of these controls before, but having them baked right into the native Camera app can make a big impact, in my opinion. You don’t have to download another app or learn another interface to take advantage of them — they’re right there when you open the camera.

• Camera score: 5 / 5

Camera samples

Apple iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max review: Software, Siri AI, and Apple Intelligence

• Siri AI is here, in beta, and works across apps and personal context
• It can use your current on-screen context to help answer questions
• It's a major step forward, but it still makes mistakes and has rough edges

The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max ran iOS 26 out of the box, and it's no surprise that iOS 27 is preloaded on the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. It runs really well here, and the A20 Pro under the hood keeps things gliding along — more on that processor below.

Much of iOS 27 is about under-the-hood changes that speed things up, which is especially helpful for older phones, along with more ways to customize the Liquid Glass interface, including adjusting how much of that glass effect you want to see.

The real story, though, is that the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max come with the new, AI-powered Siri out of the box, in beta, in specific regions. It’s available now in the United States, though you’ll need to join a waitlist, and it arrives alongside some new Apple Intelligence features.

For starters, Siri AI is much faster, and shows its work as it goes, which makes the experience feel more transparent. For instance, I’ve asked for details on my last flight and watched Siri AI dive into the right app — whether that’s Calendar, Flighty, United, or even Mail — to pull up the information I’m looking for. I’ve also used it to confirm my departure time, and ask how long it might take to get to the airport. It really does work, and it feels natural, and easy to get the hang of.

That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Siri AI diving into some apps can cause mistakes, and at times it can pull up the wrong dataset or make the wrong assumption about what I’m asking for. But given how delayed this upgrade has been, and how limited the existing Siri has felt, overall it finally feels like Apple has delivered on the promise of a more capable assistant, while still putting privacy at the center as it works with your personal data and what’s on your device.

Siri AI can even be cued to see what’s on your screen, adding another layer of usefulness. Rather than having to explain everything you’re looking at, you can let Siri understand the context of what’s in front of you and go from there. It’s one of those features that sounds small on paper, but once you start using it, it feels like the direction Siri should have been heading in all along.

Apple Intelligence also brings a handful of other updates, including new ways to work with images, improvements to Photos and other apps, and more ways to put on-device intelligence to work. But Siri AI is easily the headline for me. After years of Siri feeling like an assistant that was increasingly behind the times, it finally feels like I’m actually talking to an AI assistant on an iPhone, rather than simply giving commands to a voice interface.

And while it’s still in beta, and there are clearly some kinks to work out, that’s an important distinction. Apple isn’t just talking about what Siri will be able to do anymore — on the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, I’m actually using it. It’s faster, more conversational, understands more context, and can work across the apps and information already on my phone.

For me, that makes iOS 27 feel less like a flashy annual software update, and more like the foundation for where Apple wants the iPhone to go next. The A20 Pro gives it the horsepower to keep everything moving, while Siri AI finally starts making good on the Apple Intelligence promise. And because it’s built into the iPhone, and designed around the information already on your device, it feels like a much more natural extension of how I already use my phone, rather than another AI chatbot I need to remember to open.

• Software score: 5 / 5

Apple iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max review: Performance

• A20 Pro is seriously fast
• The biggest gains over the A19 Pro come in specific workloads and future headroom
• Improved thermal management helps keep the phone cooler under heavy use

It might be no surprise, but the A20 Pro chip inside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max is, as Apple claims, the fastest chip it’s put in an iPhone. And it’s actually more similar to an M-Series-powered SoC that Apple might opt for in a Mac than previous A-series chips.

With the A20 Pro, the SoC actually sits next to the DRAM, rather than having the memory stacked on top, as it has been in previous generations. It’s also built on a 2-nanometer process, just like the M6.

Inside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, the A20 Pro is broken up into a 6-core CPU — two performance cores and four efficiency cores — a 7-core GPU, and a dual 16-core Neural Engine.

What does all of that mean for real-world use? Well, pretty much what you’d expect from a new Pro iPhone: everything is fast. Apps open quickly, jumping between them is fluid, games run smoothly, and even more demanding tasks don’t really give the A20 Pro much pause.

Take video exports, for example. I’ve been exporting 4K videos with graphics, text, and transitions in both Edits and CapCut, and the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max handle them quickly. It’s the kind of task where you can really feel the combination of the new chip and all that processing power, especially when you’re working with more complicated edits.

Gaming is another area where the A20 Pro flexes a bit. Real Flight Simulator runs smoothly, with environments rendering quickly as I’m flying around. The same goes for Wuthering Waves and Genshin Impact, both of which seemingly put a pretty serious load on the phones, which they seemingly handle without issue.

Multitasking has also been a non-issue. I’ve had plenty of apps open, jumped into FaceTime while playing a game, and bounced between multiple text conversations without the iPhone 18 Pro or 18 Pro Max missing a beat. That’s probably the less exciting side of performance, but it’s also where you notice the power of the A20 Pro day-to-day — you don’t really have to think about what’s running in the background.

Photo Clean Up is a bit faster than it was on the iPhone 17 Pro, for example, so removing an unwanted object or person from a shot takes less time. It’s not a massive difference, but when you use these tools frequently, those little speed improvements add up.

Additionally, the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max handle heat better, so sustained performance doesn’t come with the same uncomfortable warmth I experienced with the 17 Pro generation. The heat isn’t magically gone, but it’s distributed better, rather than sitting in one spot on the back, and dissipates faster.

It’s worth keeping some perspective here, though. The A20 Pro isn’t night-and-day faster than the A19 Pro in the iPhone 17 Pro or the chip in the iPhone Air, and you’ll likely only see more meaningful gains over something like the iPhone 16 Pro in specific scenarios. That’s not really the point.

The A20 Pro gives the iPhone more headroom for the future, especially as we run more and more AI-powered tasks on our phones, and, increasingly, other Apple devices. After spending this much time with it, the A20 Pro gives me no pause about getting several years of strong performance out of the iPhone 18 Pro or 18 Pro Max.

If you’re coming from an iPhone 15 or older, though, that’s where I think you’ll really notice the difference. You’re not just getting a faster chip; you’re getting a phone with considerably more processing headroom for demanding games, video editing, Apple Intelligence, and whatever Apple adds over the next few years.

Additionally, the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max will both feature the new Apple-made C2 modem globally. On my Burgundy iPhone 18 Pro connected to AT&T's network, I scored over 900MBps down in a jam-packed park, but the story is a little different with the 18 Pro Max in the US. The larger Pro iPhone in the States opts for a Qualcomm modem, but I didn't notice much of an issue with performance. I was connected to the Visible network and averaged about 350MBps to 500MBps down while in the parks and around New Jersey.

• Performance score: 5 / 5

Apple iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max review: Battery

• I averaged around 30 hours, with the Pro Max stretching further
• 50% charge in 15 minutes means you can get back in action quickly with wired charging

Alongside variable aperture on the main camera and the faster A20 Pro inside, Apple is making big promises about battery life with its latest Pro iPhones. In fact, the Cupertino giant notes that the iPhone 18 Pro will last longer than the iPhone 17 Pro Max, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max offers the longest battery life ever in an iPhone.

More specifically, it’s up to 36 hours of video playback on the iPhone 18 Pro, and up to 45 hours on the iPhone 18 Pro Max. These figures are based on Apple’s video-playback testing, and real-world battery life will vary depending on what you’re doing. Also keep in mind that these devices will need some time to index and get their bearings.

I’ll likely need to come back to this section in the coming weeks as indexing concludes, and I’m not shooting hundreds of photos and many minutes of video a day — after all, this is a review period. But with both the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, I’ve averaged around 30 hours of use before needing to plug in, and that stretches a bit further with the Max.

Even on an endurance day in the Florida heat, with hundreds of photos captured and nearly an hour of video recorded, the iPhone 18 Pro Max lasted an impressive amount of time before I needed a pit stop back at the hotel to recharge. It can drain quickly with heavy use, especially when you’re doing a lot of content capture, but in my testing thus far, both phones have been impressive.

In Future Labs' battery test, the iPhone 18 Pro lasted 16 hours and 17 minutes, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max ran for 18 hours and 27 minutes. That’s a good chunk less than Apple’s own video-playback figures, but my daily usage does stretch a bit closer to its claims.

On my last day of testing, I took the iPhone 18 Pro Max off the charger at 6AM and it hit 80% right before 11AM. With lots of app usage and some capture, it dropped to around 40% around 6PM with heavier use, but on average I got about 30 hours of use.

Apple also has improved fast wired charging, letting you hit 50% in just 15 minutes. I achieved that with both phones using Apple’s own Dynamic 40W charger, as well as a smaller Anker 45W Nano Cube. That means even if you do drain the battery, you don’t have to spend long tethered to an outlet before you’re back in business.

• Battery score: 5 / 5

Apple iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max: Should you buy?

Buy it if...

Don’t buy it if...

Apple iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max: Also consider

Apple iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max: How I tested

I’ve covered iPhones since the iPhone 8 generation, and the iPhone 3GS was my first personal iPhone. For this review, I spent a week with the iPhone 18 Pro in Burgundy and the iPhone 18 Pro Max in Glacier.

I used both as daily drivers, covering everything from calls and streaming to gaming, work apps, photography, and video. I also ran performance benchmarks, tested multitasking and demanding workloads, and tracked battery drain across different usage scenarios alongside a standardized battery test.

For the cameras, I captured hundreds of photos and dozens of videos across Disney World — including Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and the resorts — as well as New Jersey, California, and from airplane windows. I tested every rear camera, multiple focal lengths, variable aperture, Pro controls, Night mode, Portrait mode, and video, along with the 18MP Center Stage camera.

I also compared the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max with the previous-generation Pro models, the iPhone 17, iPhone Air, and other smartphones including the Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro.

First reviewed September 2026.

So no, neither of these fold, but the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max still feel like modern-day flagship smartphones after my quick hands-on right after Apple’s Surprise and Shine event.

While neither flagship device carries the mystique and intrigue of the iPhone Duo, both march forward with a laundry list of features and enhancements that will push the iPhone into the future for many.

As someone who’s spent a lot of time reviewing the entry-level iPhones, like the iPhone 17 and iPhone 16, which normally get the fun new colors, I was instantly struck by the new shades. Immediately, Burgundy for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max stood out — it’s a lovely dark shade of red that can shimmer a bit depending on how the light hits it, and it's definitely less of a pop than Cosmic Orange, but it's really just lovely.

Back in black

There’s also Glacier, a light blue that can come across as bluish silver depending on how the light hits it — and it was the color of the invite for Apple’s Special Event. Black, in a very matte, dark fashion, is back as a Pro color option alongside silver.

Aside from that, these new phones look and feel very much like the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max in your hand — not a bad thing, as that ushered in a slightly sturdier build with the larger camera plateau.

Arguably the biggest hardware change lives here, though, and it’s variable aperture — which you can actually see in action, opening and closing, with your own eyes — for the 48-megapixel main Fusion camera. This should give the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max a leg up in low light, as you can adjust — either manually with Pro Controls or by letting the iPhone set it automatically — aperture, shutter speed, and white balance.

You can pick between a set of four — ƒ/1.48, ƒ/1.8, ƒ/2.8, and ƒ/4.0 — apertures for the main lens and, depending on your pick, you can let more light in or less, so it handles multiple depths for subjects in one shot more effectively.

I played around with these and the new Pro Controls interface at the top of the camera app, and here’s the good news: it’s fully customizable, so you can place what is most helpful there.

I didn’t have much time with it, but it’s clear it does open and close the aperture window on the back of the phone, so it moves as Apple describes. You have way more controls now over your photos so you can get closer to what you’re really after. It's also coupled with enhancements to Photographic Styles that will let you add in texture or grain, as well as AI-infused photo editing features as part of iOS 27.

This 48-megapixel main camera with variable aperture is paired with a 48-megapixel telephoto lens and a 48-megapixel ultra-wide lens. This means that the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max can still shoot from 0.5x to 8x optical, and up to 40x digitally. So while the iPhone Duo folds, the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max do still pack the Pro-grade camera system.

On the front, there’s still the impressive CenterStage Camera and Face ID stack with all the nifty features that the 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max ushered in, but the change is a dramatically smaller Dynamic Island. And it’s not a case of shrinking it for shrinking’s sake either — the increased screen real estate around the smaller island that’s centered at the top lets it show up to three Live Activities at once, and each of these can show a bit more detail.

For instance, if you have music playing at the top and a timer next to it, you previously couldn’t actually see how much time is left — that’s fixed now. I tried a mix of these — tossing Flighty, Maps, Music, Timer, and other apps at the top — and I do believe this will be genuinely useful. I’m not sure it’s an immediate reason to upgrade from, say, a 17 Pro, but those who swear by the Dynamic Island won’t be disappointed.

Those are the most evident changes I noticed from a brief hands-on, and it’s a toss-up for me between the Burgundy and Glacier shades and the camera upgrades for my favorite new feature. iOS 27 ran really smoothly on the unit I used in the hands-on space Apple provided, and that’s likely thanks to the two-nanometer A20 Pro chip under the hood. It’s Apple’s fastest yet and features ‘Super Cores’ in the CPU, much like Apple’s M-Class silicon for the Mac lineup.

It’s also paired with a new thermal architecture that includes a larger vapor chamber, which should keep the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max a bit cooler, especially around the raised camera plateau on the back. Perhaps the biggest change I didn’t get to test is the longer battery-life promise. The 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max were no slouches in this department by any means, but Apple’s running laps year over year, with the 18 Pro now lasting as long as last year's 17 Pro Max and the 18 Pro Max going even further.

There’s a $100 price increase for these new devices in the United States — the iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 for 256GB and the 18 Pro Max at $1,299 for 256GB. That’s a $100 increase generation over generation, and you can pay more to configure these up to 2TB. Both go up for preorder on September 12, 2026, and launch on September 18, 2026. There will be both carrier deals and the Apple Upgrade Financing route.

I’ll need to spend more time with both to see how much those changes actually matter in everyday use, but after this first hands-on, the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max feel like a continuation of what Apple started with the 17 Pro generation rather than a complete rethink.

And honestly, that’s not a bad thing. The hardware still feels premium in hand, the new colors are excellent, the smaller Dynamic Island looks genuinely useful, and the variable aperture is the one change that immediately made me want to spend more time with the camera.

The iPhone Duo may have the flashier story this year, but the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max still feel very much like the flagship iPhones to beat – and I’m especially curious to see what that camera can actually do once I get them out of Apple's hands-on area and into the real world.

I’ve always been a fan of premium formats at the cinema, and thanks to the combination of a large screen, rich visuals, and sound that really packs a punch, Dolby Cinema has long been my go-to choice — even over IMAX.

This week, I ventured to a local AMC in New Jersey for Spider-Man: Brand New Day in Dolby Cinema. The theater featured stadium-style seating and was practically sold out, with only a handful of seats remaining in the front row. Considering the film has grossed more than a billion dollars globally, including over half a billion dollars in the US alone, it’s no surprise that tickets for Dolby Cinema and theaters in general have been hard to come by.

So, while my screening came a few days after opening, it was well worth the wait and ended up being one of my favorite Dolby Cinema experiences in a while.

For starters, the dual 4K laser projectors that power Dolby Cinema did a fantastic job with Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Colors were rich and vibrant, while the finer details in darker scenes remained visible without losing that cinematic contrast. Yes, a Dolby Cinema screen is typically smaller than a true IMAX screen, but that didn’t bother me here. Between the picture quality and the audio, I still felt completely immersed in the world of Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

I was pulled into the action almost immediately, and the combination of the screen, seating, and sound made the theater itself almost disappear.

You could, of course, opt for ScreenX, which wraps the image around you across the side walls, or catch Brand New Day on select IMAX screens in the US for a limited time. Just remember that those screenings aren’t necessarily the same as seeing a film presented in true 70mm IMAX — an important distinction when talking about premium cinema formats.

But for me, the real highlight was the Dolby Atmos sound.

Dolby Cinema’s audio setup is an expansive, full-range system designed to deliver sound throughout the theater, and Brand New Day makes particularly good use of it. It can pack a serious punch when the action kicks in, but what impressed me most was the low end. The bass wasn’t simply loud; it had weight and presence, adding another physical dimension to explosions, movement, and the film’s bigger action sequences.

Spoilers lie ahead

Spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day ahead

As noted above, the real highlight for me was the sound. While the entire mix was well done and made excellent use of Dolby Cinema’s audio capabilities, there is one scene in particular that stands out — hence the spoiler warning, as it revolves around a pretty major plot point.

As Peter Parker begins to deal with the rise of arachnid traits in his genes — see a taste in the image above — he starts experiencing heightened senses. When he heads onto a rooftop, the sequence becomes a fantastic showcase for what a well-designed cinema sound system can actually do.

You hear the rush and bustle of New York City around Peter. Footsteps take on a heightened presence. An empty bag of chips scraping and tumbling along the ground suddenly becomes an important part of the soundscape. Instead of simply hearing these sounds as background noise, you’re placed inside Peter’s heightened perception of them.

And this is where Dolby Atmos really shines, especially when it all rushes together.

From a spatial perspective, the mix does a tremendous job of pinpointing where sounds are coming from and matching them to what’s happening on screen. Sounds move around the theater in a way that feels deliberate rather than gimmicky, helping put you directly into Peter’s headspace. The result is a sequence that feels less like you’re watching someone experience heightened senses and more like you’re experiencing them alongside him.

It’s a real tour de force for the sound team — and arguably one of the better demonstrations I’ve experienced of what premium cinema audio can add to a movie beyond simply making things louder.

When I head in for my second viewing of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, it’ll most certainly be in Dolby Cinema again. The picture is excellent, the seating and presentation are fantastic, and the overall experience is incredibly immersive.

But ultimately, it’ll be for the sound.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day reminded me that when Dolby Cinema is firing on all cylinders, the audio can be just as important to the cinematic experience as what’s happening on the screen.

"It takes close to eight months to produce the topiaries," explained Debbie Mola Mickler, area manager at Disney's Horticulture — for installations that were on display for just a few weeks.

On that clock, Disney's horticulture team is likely already deep into next year's lineup — even though this year's International Flower & Garden Festival at EPCOT only wrapped June 1. Mola Mickler oversees production of the living character sculptures that define the festival at Walt Disney World in Orlando. What look like decorative topiaries from a distance reveal themselves up close as something far more complex.

Underneath, engineered steel frames, a moss growth medium, and tightly integrated irrigation work together so that whether it's Mickey, Buzz, Lightning McQueen, or any other character, the topiary presents itself exactly as it should. They're closer to architecture than landscaping, and the timeline to build one reflects that.

That timeline starts long before any planting begins. Disney's horticulture team works directly with Walt Disney Imagineering to decide which characters can even be translated into living structures — a process that blends creative direction with real-world constraints like weight, scale, and maintenance. Once a character is selected, Mola Mickler goes straight to the source and thinks about scale — how big the topiaries need to be, and what plant material can tell that story.

From design, Disney's digital team produces a maquette — a small 3D-printed physical model of each topiary — that serves as the reference guide for everything that follows, from fabrication through final trimming.

That translation from screen to structure is where Disney's topiaries stop being just landscaping and become systems design problems. "Our Imagineers are so creative, they've pushed us towards getting these topiaries with more movement," she explained. The dresses have folds; legs may be bent like a character is mid-dance. That push toward motion and expression has forced a redesign of how internal structures are built — especially as characters become more dynamic and less symmetrical.

Once a design is approved, Disney builds a full production pipeline that starts with digital modeling and ends with custom steel fabrication. "You can't just go to the yellow pages and find a welder to make the frame," Debbie said.

Each topiary begins as a custom-engineered stainless steel structure designed to support weight, shape, and long-term outdoor exposure. Built into each frame are engineered pick points — load-bearing anchors that allow heavy equipment like cranes and forklifts to position the finished topiaries into their beds in the park. Some characters arrive in multiple pieces and are assembled on-site.

Once the steel frame is in place, it's filled with sphagnum moss, which acts as the primary growth medium. For larger characters, Disney builds a secondary cage of chicken wire inside the frame first — since plants only need about two to three inches of growing area, the inner cage reduces the amount of moss required while maintaining the structure's shape.

The moss retains moisture, supports plant plugs, and forms the core structure that everything else grows into. Built into each frame is a segmented irrigation system that allows Disney to control water distribution at a surprisingly granular level.

"We can do arms, we can do the head, we can do the feet," Debbie said. "And then we'll turn it off as needed." That segmentation isn't just for efficiency — it's environmental control. Florida's climate can shift rapidly, and different parts of a topiary may require different hydration levels depending on sun exposure and airflow.

As the plants grow in, the maquette becomes the trimming guide — helping maintain pose accuracy and character shape across months of active growth before the festival opens.

Behind the scenes, Disney operates continuous environmental monitoring across 12 greenhouse facilities, each subdivided into controlled environments that simulate different growing conditions depending on plant type and stage. Debbie described automated alerts that notify her directly if temperatures fall outside safe ranges — a system her team relies on enough that they refer to themselves as "weather watchers."

The foundational methods, though, have deep roots. "Many years ago when I first started in Disney horticulture, we did not have sphagnum topiary," Debbie said. "We only had woody topiaries with single shrubs being trained in a frame, and it can take seven to 10 years to grow one."

Those traditional systems, still used at Disneyland, rely on shrubs trained over lightweight frames and take several years to mature. At EPCOT, the sphagnum system enables faster production cycles and far more expressive designs — but still requires nearly a year of preparation per installation.

Some heritage pieces remain in rotation, including a more than 50-year-old elephant topiary originally built for Magic Kingdom that now makes a special appearance just for Flower & Garden in EPCOT's United Kingdom Pavilion.

Modern festival builds, meanwhile, sit at the intersection of horticulture and fabrication engineering. Materials like palm fiber replicate textures such as Woody's hat and boots; coconut coir matting handles facial detailing. Props like belt buckles and sheriff badges are 3D printed and integrated directly into the structures.

Even animation principles feed into final assembly. "We want to make sure the eyes are always looking at the guest when they take a picture," Debbie said.

It's that kind of detail — designed not just to be seen, but to be experienced — that makes the topiaries something more than seasonal decoration. They're living installations built to hold up across an entire festival, in Florida heat, one carefully engineered character at a time.

The art TV market is more crowded than ever before, and even though Samsung started it with the Frame TV and later expanded with the Frame Pro, there’s been Hisense’s Canvas TV for a while, and the most recent addition is from Amazon.

Amazon’s Ember Artline Fire TV might only come in two sizes, but it packs a punch in two key areas compared to Samsung’s Frame TV: it comes with a frame that completes the effect of looking like a true piece of art out of the box, and you don’t need to pay for a subscription for art to show off.

• Browse the full Amazon Prime Day sale

Best of all, though, it’s down to its lowest price for Prime Day 2026, with Amazon dropping the 55-inch to just $699.99 (originally $899.99) and the 65-inch to $899.99 (originally $1,099.99) — that’s a 22% and 18% discount, respectively. You also get to pick between 10 frame options.

Today's best Amazon Ember Artline Fire TV deal

It’s a pretty stellar Prime Day deal for an art or lifestyle TV. The Ember Artline, in either the 55-inch or 65-inch size, is a 4K QLED TV finished with a matte coating. And yes, the latter is pretty similar to how the Frame TV is finished, helping make whatever art you’re displaying look more like actual artwork.

Amazon also supports the HDR10+ standard here, along with Dolby Vision, and it runs Fire TV out of the box.

The latter means you’ll have access to all the major streaming services such as Disney+, Netflix, and Apple TV, assuming you have the logins, and you can control it all with Alexa+.

It’s also a thin TV that won’t protrude from the wall all that much if you decide to hang it, as the Ember Artline is just 1.5 inches thick. Out of the box, you get access to over 2,000 pieces of artwork to display for free, and you can upload your own photos.

At $200 off for both the 55-inch and 65-inch models, there hasn’t been a better time to score the Ember Artline than Prime Day 2026. Of course, Samsung’s The Frame models are seeing discounts of their own this Prime Day.

Right now, you can get the standard 55-inch The Frame for $697.99 at Amazon — or you can get the 55-inch Samsung The Frame Pro for 15% off at $1,267.99. Remember, though, you’ll need to buy your own Frame Bezel.

The Frame Pro also boasts a QLED Mini LED display, and has a wireless One Connect Box for a cleaner look when fully set up.

More Prime Day deals in the US

• Amazon Devices: Fire Sticks & Echo from $18
• Amazon Haul: viral gadgets, tech & appliances from $1.99
• Apple: MacBooks, AirPods & AirTags from $29
• Beauty: 50% off toothbrushes & hair tools
• Cheap TVs: smart TVs from $69.99
• Garden: tools, mowers, planters from $24.99
• Headphones: 50% off Beats, Bose & Samsung
• Laptops: Apple, HP & Dell from $199
• Mattresses: Sealy, Serta & more from $186
• Patio: outdoor furniture, rugs & decor from $19.99
• Sports: 50% off fitness gear, treadmills & clothing
• Vacuums: Dyson, Shark & Bissell from $34

Yes, Amazon’s Prime Day 2026 sale is in full swing, and it’s a full four-day affair this time around, meaning it won’t come to an end until midnight on June 26, 2026. And beyond Lego sets, the best TVs, coffee machines, and other kitchen gadgets, there’s a good chance you’re eyeing some savings on Apple gear.

• Browse the full Amazon Prime Day sale

From AirPods Pro 3 and the entry-level iPad to MacBooks, Apple Watches, and iPhones, many of these devices top our lists of the very best products you can buy, Apple or not. And lucky for all of us, Amazon is delivering some of the best prices on these gadgets we’ve ever tracked. Heck, with AirPods Pro 3 specifically, we’ve seen Amazon and Walmart battling it out for the lowest price.

I’ve reviewed and gone hands-on with many of Apple’s gadgets, and other experts here at TechRadar have as well. So below, I’m rounding up the 10 best Apple deals to shop this Prime Day.

Whether you’re looking for an AirTag, an Apple Watch, or a MacBook Air, keep scrolling — Prime Day 2026 is delivering. And if you’re in the UK, check out our list of the 6 best Apple deals to shop right here.

Today's best Apple AirTag deals in the US

Today's best Apple AirPods deals in the US

Today's best Apple Watch deals in the US

Today's best Apple iPad deals in the US

Today's best Apple MacBook deals in the US

More Prime Day deals in the US

• Amazon Devices: Fire Sticks & Echo from $18
• Amazon Haul: viral gadgets, tech & appliances from $1.99
• Apple: MacBooks, AirPods & AirTags from $29
• Beauty: 50% off toothbrushes & hair tools
• Cheap TVs: smart TVs from $69.99
• Garden: tools, mowers, planters from $24.99
• Headphones: 50% off Beats, Bose & Samsung
• Laptops: Apple, HP & Dell from $199
• Mattresses: Sealy, Serta & more from $186
• Patio: outdoor furniture, rugs & decor from $19.99
• Sports: 50% off fitness gear, treadmills & clothing
• Vacuums: Dyson, Shark & Bissell from $34