Apple iPhone 18 Pro review

For a new flagship phone from Apple, the iPhone 18 Pro is unusually easy to overlook.

On the one hand, while the iPhone 17 Pro was the biggest redesign of the Pro line in years, this new model looks essentially identical to its predecessor. On the other, Apple's first foldable iPhone is about to arrive, attracting much of the attention that would normally be reserved for a new flagship.

And yet, while the changes to the iPhone 18 Pro may not be immediately obvious, they add up to a phone that's subtly better in some important ways. The new A20 Pro chip brings more power and efficiency, the variable-aperture main camera is an impressive piece of engineering, and battery life has taken a significant step forward.

For us, though, the biggest question is what Apple has done with the bit that hasn't apparently changed. The screen and audio hardware are almost identical to those of the 17 Pro, yet our testing reveals some surprisingly worthwhile improvements to both picture and sound.

Price

There is a disappointment to get out of the way immediately, though: the iPhone 18 Pro is £100 / $100 / AU$100 more expensive than its predecessor was. That means the price for the entry-level 256GB model is £1199 / $1199 / AU$2099.

The 512GB version again commands a premium of £200 / $200 / AU$400, but the cost of the 1TB model has now jumped to a disproportionate £1799 / $1799 / AU$3299.

If that’s still not enough storage for you, there’s also now a 2TB model, which will set you back the princely sum of £2399 / $2399 / AU$4499.

If you’d like a bigger screen, meanwhile, a 6.9-inch iPhone 18 Pro Max costs £100 / $100 / AU$200 more than a 6.3-inch iPhone 18 Pro of the same capacity.

Design

There's very little that's new about the iPhone 18 Pro's design, but that's hardly a complaint.

This is a beautifully made, exceptionally handsome phone, with its combination of smooth surfaces, premium materials and robust construction giving it the kind of in-hand comfort and reassuring solidity you'd expect from a flagship iPhone.

The Ceramic Shield 2 front and Ceramic Shield back should help it withstand the knocks of everyday use, too, and the IP68 rating remains.

At 211g, it's just 7g heavier than the 17 Pro, while the dimensions are identical.

The new colours are Black, Glacier and Burgundy, joining the returning Silver. Our Burgundy review sample looks considerably better in person than it does in pictures, but we don't think it's quite as handsome as the Deep Blue finish of our 17 Pro review sample. It's also a shame that there's no particularly vibrant option this time around, with nothing quite as eye-catching as last year's Cosmic Orange.

Those are minor niggles, though – the iPhone 18 Pro is an absolutely lovely device from a design perspective.

Features

The biggest changes from last year's iPhone 17 Pro are the new A20 Pro chip, a larger vapour chamber for better cooling, longer battery life and an extremely impressive variable aperture on the 48MP Fusion Main camera.

Apple claims that the A20 Pro delivers up to 20 per cent faster CPU performance and up to 40 per cent faster GPU performance than the A19 Pro, while the new cooling system helps deliver up to 40 per cent better sustained performance.

As ever, this is more power than a humble portable movie and music player is ever likely to need, but it will be useful for long sessions on iOS’s most advanced games, and it should make more advanced AI tasks that bit quicker and speed up jobs such as video editing, should that be your sort of thing.

For most of us, perhaps the biggest benefit to all of that power will be how long the phone should remain capable of delivering a satisfying performance – if you’re a content consumer, this is a phone that could last you years.

On the subject of AI, Siri AI is finally available – albeit officially in beta form. This delivers an AI experience much closer to that which many people have become accustomed to with ChatGPT and its rivals, but with added personal depth thanks to integration with your messages, emails, calendar, etc. It’s worth noting, though, that you don’t need to buy the iPhone 18 Pro in order to access Siri AI – it’s available via phones as old as the iPhone 15 Pro.

The iPhone 18 Pro’s more efficient chip, combined with the improved cooling system, also contributes to better battery life, with Apple quoting up to 34 hours of video playback compared with 31 hours for the 17 Pro. Opt for the iPhone 18 Pro Max, and that battery life leaps to a whopping 43 hours of video, up from the 37 hours of the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Charging is faster, too. Apple says the 18 Pro can reach 50 per cent charge in around 15 minutes, although you'll need a suitable 60W charger with Adjustable Voltage Supply to achieve that. There's no charger in the box, of course.

The camera system's biggest change is the variable aperture on the 48MP Fusion Main camera, which automatically adjusts for lighting and depth of field. This really is a very impressive feat of engineering, with six laser-cut blades, each thinner than a human hair, arranged in a circle and able to open and close to physically control the amount of light hitting the sensor. This isn’t the first time such technology has been implemented in a phone, but the iPhone 18 Pro is the only mainstream phone that currently features it.

To go with this new pro-style camera hardware are several pro-style software features, including ‘Pro’ controls for the aperture, upgraded photographic style customisations, smart focus tracking and improved low-light video, and cinematic effects can now be applied after you’ve recorded your video.

Of course, this is largely overkill for those of us of a more point-and-shoot persuasion, but the variable aperture does appear to make the promised improvements to low-light shots, which are crisper and more detailed than those we capture with the iPhone 17 Pro. In fact, across the board, we find the iPhone 18 Pro produces subtly sharper photos than its predecessor, even when simply left in the Auto mode.

As ever, though, our real interest lies in the picture and sound performance, and in this respect, on paper, almost nothing has changed.

The one small screen change is that the Dynamic Island has been shrunk, so it should prove even less likely to distract when watching full-screen movies.

Specs-wise, though, this is the same screen as before: a 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR OLED with a 2622 x 1206 resolution, 460ppi and ProMotion with adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz.

Maximum outdoor brightness remains 3000 nits, HDR format support is once again universal, and Apple quotes a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio and a minimum brightness of 1 nit.

Apple hasn’t flagged any changes to the speaker system or audio hardware, either, so in theory, the iPhone 18 Pro should deliver movies and music exactly as the iPhone 17 Pro does.

Picture quality

Despite the identical screen specs, there are subtle but noticeable differences in the picture quality of the iPhone 18 Pro compared with the iPhone 17 Pro.

Playing F1: The Movie, we’re treated to an awesome contrast-rich, sharp and detailed delivery. The crispness of the rendering of the GT cars in the opening of the scene is superb, even as they bomb along the back straight of Daytona, and the deep, inky OLED blacks give the night-time scene a wonderful presence and solidity.

All of this is true of the iPhone 17 Pro, too, though. The difference lies in colour temperature, with the new model skewing slightly cooler. It’s not so cool as to give the presentation an overly blue, uncinematic appearance, but it does lend the whole scene an even cleaner, punchier look, with highlights that have even more bite. For a movie such as F1, the new balance works brilliantly.

It’s slightly less of a qualified success with a movie such as Shutter Island, though, where the cooler balance removes some of the intentionally old-fashioned richness of the mastering.

In truth, the iPhone 17 Pro perhaps skews a little too warm, exaggerating this richness, and the perfect balance probably lies somewhere between the delivery of the two phones, but the new model makes Leonardo DiCaprio look even more pale than he’s supposed to, and also robs his ridiculous tie of some of its vibrancy. On the other hand, though, peak highlights again pop a little more dynamically, as seen in the ceiling lights of the hospital and gleam off the barrel of a silver pistol.

It’s also worth noting that while the differences are relatively easy to spot when the two phones are viewed side-by-side, in isolation, both models are superb for watching movies on the move – it’s like having a small, high-quality OLED TV in your pocket.

Finally, a word on the Dynamic Island. As mentioned, this has been made smaller for the new iPhone Pro (though it can conversely expand further to present more live information when required).

As before, it’s invisible when watching movies in the default letterbox style, but it intrudes into the picture when you expand it to fill the display. We’ve always found the Dynamic Island surprisingly easy to ignore, with your brain quickly forgetting it’s there, but it’s even less noticeable on the iPhone 18 Pro.

Sound quality

We were really impressed by the iPhone 17 Pro’s spatial openness and organisation, and the iPhone 18 Pro is even better in these regards, albeit only very slightly so.

Watching the opening of F1: The Movie once more, as Sonny peers out at the racetrack from his team’s garage, the degree to which the sound of the cars stretches from far right to far left as they roar along the straight is disarmingly impressive, and the placement of all of the competing effects is even more precise than with last year’s model.

This precision helps dialogue emerge from the chaotic sonic backdrop even more clearly, too, and there’s a very small degree of additional dynamic subtlety and detail to voices.

Of course, we’re still talking about phone speakers here, so while the sound is remarkably impressive for a device this small, it’s still lightweight and shrill by absolute standards, and watching movies this way should really only be a last resort.

That’s even more true of stereo music, although the iPhone 18 Pro is very slightly better than the 17 Pro here, too, with a marginally cleaner and less congested presentation.

Of course, it’s when a pair of headphones is connected that the iPhone produces a sonic performance that’s really worth getting excited about.

Listening to Sleep Token’s The Summoning via a pair of AirPods Max 2 headphones connected via USB-C for maximum quality, the 18 Pro delivers all of the track’s bruising aggression without introducing any hard edges or harshness.

The initial percussive attack hits like a freight train, but the huge punches and massive volume shifts combine with fine detail and subtle low-level dynamics to deliver every part of the epic track’s evolution with the required balance of brutality and beauty.

Tonal balance is superb, too, with the hi-hat tinkling cheekily against the funky bassline of the unexpectedly groovy finale, and Vessel’s rich vocals projected cleanly.

This balance and blend of abilities make the iPhone equally adept with all genres of music, and as we switch from metal to folk, pop, classical and beyond, we’re not once disappointed by the delivery.

Of course, all of this is also true of the iPhone 17 Pro, and it’s true that the differences between the headphone presentations of the two phones are tiny. There is, though, a little additional precision to the leading edges of notes from the new model over the last, which was itself a touch punchier than the model before it. We really are talking minimal margins here, though.

Verdict

The iPhone 18 Pro is an outstanding portable movie and music player, with a superb picture, excellent sound and some surprisingly worthwhile improvements over its predecessor.

The picture remains the real star. The 18 Pro delivers the same exceptional contrast, detail and clarity as the 17 Pro, but its slightly cooler balance gives bright, punchy material such as F1: The Movie even more impact. It's not quite as successful with warmer, more deliberately rich material, but both phones produce an exceptional picture, and the 18 Pro has the edge overall.

Sound is similarly excellent, particularly through headphones, where the 18 Pro delivers superb clarity, dynamics and tonal balance. The built-in speakers are remarkably capable for their size, too, with impressive spatial precision and a slightly more refined presentation than the 17 Pro.

The key thing is that none of these improvements is transformative. If you already own an iPhone 17 Pro, there's no compelling AV reason to upgrade, particularly given the price increase.

For someone buying a new phone, though, the equation is different. The iPhone 18 Pro is a stunning portable AV device in its own right, while its more powerful chip, longer battery life and significantly upgraded camera give it plenty of advantages beyond movies and music.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 5
• Features 5

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