iPhone 18 Pro Review: All

 So if this were back in 2011, this is what we would call an S update. The iPhone 18 Pro is basically an iPhone 17 Pro with a chip update, a camera upgrade, and better battery life. That's an S update if we've ever seen one. And I think it's tempting to be disappointed in that, but after using it for the past week, I actually think it's underrated. I know, cue all the comments: 'What do you mean a $1,200 iPhone is underrated?' It's expensive, but it's underrated. For two straight years now, the Pro iPhone has gone under the radar while Apple tries their riskier new ideas on other phones. But in the Pro iPhone, you will find simply the best iPhone that they make.

Let's start with the camera system. We're looking at the same three cameras as last year. But the main camera now gets this variable aperture lens. It opens all the way up to a new maximum of f/1.48, which is awesome, and it can stop down to f/4. It's one of the more subtle things you can change about a photo, giving creative people more control whether to bring the background slightly more into focus or have sharper overall images. Also, Apple adding more granular Pro controls to the stock camera app, like manual focus and manual white balance, makes a huge difference.

Now, we got to talk about this new chip. The 18 Pro has the new A20 Pro chip inside. It's a new 2-nanometer chip, and after using this phone for the past week, I really do think it's highly underrated. They moved the DRAM off the CPU to put a 3x larger vapor chamber directly on it, which lets them cool it much better. This is great for heavy gaming or shooting a ton of 4K video outside. Plus, exporting videos is significantly faster, and the doubled neural engine runs on-device AI stuff much faster too.

The last big point is battery life. The 18 Pro has the same battery life expectation as the 17 Pro Max. I've been testing the smaller 18 Pro all week, and it turns out this is easily a day-and-a-half phone. The battery isn't massively bigger; it's all the efficiency gains from the 2-nanometer architecture. They also added faster charging—I plugged it in and this thing pulled 45 watts.

There are some other little things, too. The Dynamic Island gets a little bit smaller by moving the infrared Face ID sensor behind the display, there's a new C2 modem, and new colors like Glacier Blue, Burgundy, and the Matte Black which I love. At the end of the day, it's a slow evolution over time—no crazy risks, just a really solid update driven by that 2-nanometer chip and a more refined camera.