The new iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max taste of déjà vu. The same design, the same camera sensors, the same display… But at a higher entry price than ever. Does the 2 nm etched chip, and especially the famous variable-aperture lens, justify a leap to the new Apple flagship on its own?
You can read between the lines of that cautious introduction. It’s true, I’m meeting this iPhone 18 Pro with folded arms. Rest assured, my mind remains wide open — Apple has to convince me with its new flagship which, now, costs nearly €1500. Is the Cupertino company laughing at its audience by overcharging for a smartphone that is, on paper, as leisurely as ever? Is it trying, by consequence, to push us to wait for its iPhone Duo that would make our eyes glitter even more? Or is it attempting to prove with A + B that, in reality, our iPhone from one or two years ago still works quite well?
Measuring what’s proposed, I’ll cut to the chase: the iPhone 18 Pro is a premium phone with a new chip and a novel lens, but it arrives on shelves at a price that invites comparison with last year’s generation. It suggests that Apple is betting on a flagship that, in practice, mostly coasts on well-proven fundamentals, while nudging enthusiasts toward the new optics and the refined performance envelope. The question that lingers, then, is whether the device justifies its premium for the typical user who already owns an iPhone 17 Pro or who could be enticed by the iPhone Duo in the near future.
8 / 10
Apple iPhone 18 Pro
8 / 10
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- Timeless design
- Very bright main camera
- Amazing performance
- Strong thermal management
- Longer endurance
- Variable-aperture gadget, as far as possible
- No Siri AI in Europe
- €150 more for… what, exactly?
Conclusion
Objectively, the iPhone 18 Pro is a little tech jewel. Very well presented, it has hardly any drawbacks — if any — aside from this year’s evident stall. Same screen, same camera sensors, a battery just a bit more muscular (but thankfully optimized). Yet Apple asks us to pay €150 more for the newcomer than its predecessor. Sorry, but I won’t bite.
Today, I find no reason to prefer the iPhone 18 Pro to its predecessor. Priced from €1479 to €1629 (iPhone 18 Pro Max), it never goes beyond the ambitions it set for itself and presents itself as a natural continuation of the 17 Pro. If it were priced the same, maybe. At this price, it’s a hard no.
For the average user, the variable aperture is simply not an argument. It’s a gadget for gadget lovers and photography enthusiasts that will only be truly used by a small portion of buyers. Meanwhile, the phone touts itself as the first designed for Siri AI. Fine. And this Siri AI, is it in the room with us?
You’ve understood the issue: the iPhone 18 Pro’s problem lies in its positioning. More expensive than ever, Apple’s premium is not exciting, and for the first time in many years, the upgrade doesn’t tempt me in the slightest.
Design: an iPhone that has gained weight
Rumors were right again: the iPhone 18 Pro shares the same dimensions as its predecessor, to the millimeter. Only its weight shifts slightly. Compared to the iPhone 17 Pro, we go from 206 g to 211 g. Nothing remarkable in daily use. Note that, for once, last year’s cases are compatible with the new model. That’s some saving right there.
The main aesthetic novelty this year, then, is the new color palette. The look is nice enough. I’m not particularly won over by the lineup, though the Bordeaux variant is quite nice. Still, I appreciate that the two-tone look (the central plate) is now more uniform and less jarring visually than on the iPhone 17 Pro Orange.
Beyond that, nothing moves. The same buttons, the same camera app control (though liberated from its default capacitive system), the same IP68 certification, and the same Ceramic Shield glass as last year. It’s clearly not the design you need to look for to find seven differences.
Display: a more discreet Dynamic Island
On the screen, then? Both yes and no. The iPhone 18 Pro still uses a 6.3″ OLED panel at 450 ppi, 120 Hz refresh, but this time it offers a slightly larger display surface, thanks to a Dynamic Island that is 25% thinner. This was achieved by relocating the infrared Face ID sensor to the top-left corner of the iPhone, through a skilled rearrangement of pixels invisible to the naked eye. As a result, you can now run three concurrent activities instead of two on older models. It’s not mind-blowing, but I’m still in favor of a more discreet notch.
No changes in brightness or color calibration. Apple sticks to a peak brightness of 3000 nits, ensuring excellent visibility and HDR content. Colors appear fairly neutral, with generous coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut that the display’s richness reveals.
The Dynamic Island is reduced by 25% and can show a third notification, if needed, thanks to a clever framing of the display.
Performance: the new standard
This year Apple moves to a 2 nm A20 Pro chip — the first for an iPhone. With CPU clock speeds approaching 5 GHz, the company also adds a seventh GPU core to further boost graphical performance. Benchmarks speak for themselves: it’s absolutely excellent.
Naturally, no game on the market resists. Everything launches with max graphics and unlocked frame rates. Moreover, Apple further refines the thermal formula with a next-generation vapor chamber that distributes heat more evenly across the entire surface of the phone to avoid hotspot effects seen in previous generations (notably the iPhone 15 Pro). From the initial setup, I was impressed. Transferring data from one iPhone to another, indexing files, thousands of photos and documents takes a considerable amount of time… and thus heats the chip. It’s the case here as well on the iPhone 18 Pro, but in a very temporary way. I was astonished by how quickly the device returns to a normal temperature — even after a very demanding benchmark.
A note on the memory: external tests show that the 1 TB and 2 TB iPhone 18 Pro models use QLC memory, which can be slightly slower than the TLC memory on the 256 GB and 512 GB versions (the version I tested). In everyday use, it’s not dramatic. If you transfer enormous files all day, you may notice a difference. In daily use, there are no noticeable loading delays — especially since iOS 27 improves the overall fluidity of launching apps.
The A20 Pro’s prowess also shows in AI. It’s still a soft dream in Europe, but when Apple finally presses the green button, we’ll hold a phone capable of delivering exemplary local processing times. Will we revisit this later?
Interface: AI Still Waiting in Europe
The gap between European user experience and the rest of the world continues to widen, as iOS 27 (default on the iPhone 18 Pro) ships overseas with a brand-new app that turns Siri into a proper AI chatbot. Here at home, we can shelve that feature for the moment while Apple and the European Commission sort out their business.
So what’s new in iOS 27? Not much, honestly. There’s now a mandatory control to fine-tune the strength of the Liquid Glass blur; but more importantly, a handful of camera-specific additions. Reframe can crop a photo by changing its angle of view. The result is a synthetic image that can verge on slop depending on the screen content, but can also look pretty cool in some use cases. More importantly: the Magic Eraser improves and finally delivers satisfaction… Most of the time. It’s not on par with what Google or Samsung can do, but you can now remove unsightly details from images, locally and effectively. Note that this feature isn’t restricted to the iPhone 18 Pro and works on all iPhones from the 15 Pro onward. It may be a touch faster on the new model.
iOS 27 also brings new parental controls and overall screen-time management. Useful features, but not earth-shattering. The international version of the OS is more loaded with features, with Apple Intelligence plowing ahead with personalized suggestions based on your context.
In any case, and as with all iPhones, the 18 Pro will receive at least five years of software updates. I say at least because Apple has never officially published this policy, yet even the iPhone 11 (released in 2019) runs iOS 27 today — which suggests seven years of support.
Camera: a variable aperture that changes everything?
Here come the hot takes, and yes, some debates. Apple isn’t introducing a new sensor this year but a next-generation lens capable of offering a variable aperture, akin to photo lenses. The iPhone 18 Pro can offer a record aperture from f/1.48 to f/4.0. A generous range that lets you play with light and the bokeh effect. By default, the new Pro settings in the Camera app let you choose among four presets (f/1.48, f/1.8, f/2.8, and f/4.0), but a new API allows third-party apps to be even more granular, for example with f/2.0.
I’ll be blunt: I still find this all rather niche, a gadget for the everyday user. But in a way, you can’t blame Apple. It’s written on the case: the iPhone 18 “PRO” is aimed especially at those seeking the most advanced features, even if they feel a tad gimmicky to the average buyer. Moreover, the camera automatically selects the aperture most appropriate for the scene. For most people, this won’t change much in daily life.
Now we have a textbook example of software feature gating for the new model. What stops Apple from offering manual camera controls on the iPhone 17 Pro? Why can’t we view a histogram on the iPhone Air? Why can’t we adjust shutter speed on the iPhone 16? Are these features so computationally demanding that only the A20 Pro can unlock them? Yet Android smartphones in the entry level have offered all this for a good decade with far less computing power. What about the new Photo Styles, which this year (and exclusively on the iPhone 18 Pro) smooth skin, add texture, and grain to our photos? Is owning Apple’s latest €1500 toy really a prerequisite to give photos a vintage look?
Photo setup for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max:
- Wide: 48 MP, 1/1.28″, f/1.48-4.0, OIS;
- Ultra-wide: 48 MP, 1/2.55″, f/2.2;
- Telephoto 4x: 48 MP, 1/2.55″, OIS;
- Selfies: 18 MP, f/1.9
Wide
The iPhone 18 Pro uses the same wide-angle sensor as last year, and it remains excellent. It’s sharp enough to enable a 2x zoom without too much degradation, and it produces convincing snapshots that are now more versatile thanks to the photographic styles. Most photos in this review were taken with the “Vibrant” profile, which favors warm tones and contrast. You can obviously opt for something more neutral — or even more saturated!
The variable aperture acts automatically most of the time. For landscapes, if lighting allows, the iPhone will select f/4.0 to improve overall sharpness. Conversely, when light is scarce and you want to prioritize light capture, a wider aperture is chosen (f/2.0 or f/1.8, for example). If you photograph a person, the iPhone automatically selects the largest aperture to accentuate background blur without resorting to Portrait mode. You can override these settings with the new manual mode, of course.
The new camera settings give more creative control over shots, notably by adjusting shutter speed. With a long exposure, you can capture moving subjects leaving a blurred trail. But for that, conditions must be right: in bright sunlight, you risk overexposing the shot. Again, this is a Pro gadget intended for users who know what they’re doing. I’d bet fewer than 10% of iPhone 18 Pro buyers will ever open the advanced settings menu.
Ultra-wide
No changes to the ultra-wide. It remains a solid, detailed sensor that barely suffers from diffraction (sharpness holds well at the edges) and can even perform macro shots by getting close enough to the subject. Honestly, I’m not upset that Apple isn’t revisiting it more this year. “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”
Telephoto / Zoom
No changes this year for the telephoto. It uses the same 48 MP 4x optical zoom, and can also produce 12 MP images at 8x zoom. It’s still a pleasure to use, and Apple seems to have refined the rendering clarity of shots using digital zoom beyond 8x. I still don’t recommend climbing to 120x, but finding a middle ground is easier than before.
Portraits et selfies
The iPhone remains an excellent portrait photographer, though I’d welcome manual control over how strong the default bokeh is. It’s a bit much for my taste, but it’s a minor quibble. The subject detection is often excellent, though failures can happen if the algorithm misreads a scene. Here, for example, my ears aren’t considered noteworthy enough to stay sharp. No hard feelings.
On the front, the iPhone 18 Pro takes over the new front camera sensor introduced last year. It’s a square 18 MP sensor that automatically reframes the shot based on how many people appear in the frame. A gadget that proves its usefulness over time, saving you from having to flip your phone to a horizontal orientation to capture a group selfie. Visually, honestly, it’s very well done. Colors are vivid, detail is precise… For viewing photos on a smartphone, there’s no need to switch to the main camera module.
Battery life: Apple performs magic
Despite a battery that barely exceeds 4000 mAh, Apple outdoes the overwhelming majority of Android smartphones when it comes to endurance. If, according to tests already available online, the Pro Max model is already the most enduring smartphone on the market, the iPhone 18 Pro remains quite impressive for a compact. I must admit, in use I sometimes wondered if I’d received a defective unit, seeing the battery indicator not budge. Year after year, Apple squeezes a bit more from a good old lithium-ion while competitors push densities higher, with batteries reaching 10,000 mAh… often yielding similar results. The key lies in the superb optimization and resource allocation by iOS and the A20 Pro chip. Earlier I mentioned that the best thermal management also helps reduce battery drain during heavy use.
All this to say: the iPhone 18 Pro is a day-and-a-half device in normal use — maybe more if you stay under 5 hours of daily screen time and skip long gaming sessions.
iPhone 18 Pro: price, availability and competition
As you already know: the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are the most expensive iPhones Apple has ever released — at least until the iPhone Duo drops next month. Hit by RAM costs like everyone else, Apple pushes the inflation onto consumers. The iPhone 18 Pro this year is priced the same as last year’s Pro Max. The iPhone 18 Pro Max now also touches €1,700. Only the OPPO Find X9 Ultra goes that far in extravagance.
- iPhone 18 Pro: from €1,479 (256 GB), €1,729 (512 GB), €2,229 (1 TB), €2,979 (2 TB)
- iPhone 18 Pro Max: from €1,629 (256 GB), €1,879 (512 GB), €2,379 (1 TB), €3,129 (2 TB)
We’re thus up against evident competitors like Xiaomi 17 Ultra, Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, and, to some extent, Google Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL. Smartphones that push toward perfection in their class, but which have all, or almost all, seen significant price hikes in recent months. Expect their successors to raise the price even further.
Apple iPhone 18 Pro: Clubic’s verdict
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Design remains solid -
A very bright main camera -
Impressive performance - Excellent thermal management
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Longer endurance
Test conducted on a smartphone loaned by the manufacturer.
