The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max reviews are out, and the reactions are starting to roll in from the outlets that got early units. Nearly all of them center on the same new piece of hardware, a mechanical variable aperture built into the main camera.
The rest of the phone tells a more familiar story. Chip speed is up, battery life is up, the design is nearly identical to last year, and the price is up another $100 across the board. Here is how each review breaks down.
The Verge Says the Camera’s Big Update Comes With Small Gains
The Verge’s Allison Johnson scored both phones 8 out of 10 in a her review. Her main point is that the variable aperture is genuine moving hardware inside the lens, though the image quality difference only shows up clearly at 100 percent crop.
She was more enthusiastic about the new Pro Controls in the stock Camera app, which finally bring manual aperture, shutter speed, white balance and focus without a third-party app. She also praised the new Apple Reference Image feature, which embeds verifiable authenticity data into photos to fight AI fakes, and said the rebuilt Siri AI in iOS 27 is genuinely useful for searching across email and messages at once.
Her complaints were the $100 price increase, tiny touch targets for the new manual controls, and steep pricing at the higher storage tiers.
PCMag Names the iPhone 18 Pro Max Its Editors’ Choice
PCMag’s Florence Ion rated the iPhone 18 Pro “Excellent” and gave the top pick to the iPhone 18 Pro Max for its longer battery life. She ran the A20 Pro chip, Apple’s first built on a 2-nanometer process, through Geekbench 6, 3DMark and AnTuTu, and it beat both the Google Pixel 11 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra by wide margins.
Battery life was the standout. She used the iPhone 18 Pro for a full day of messaging, gaming and streaming without a charge and still had 45 percent left after nearly 15 hours of continuous video. Charging was fast too, reaching 49 percent in 15 minutes on a 45W charger.
On the camera, she liked the four-preset variable aperture and the 8x optical-quality zoom, but noted Apple left out manual ISO control entirely.
PetaPixel Changes Its Mind on Variable Aperture After 1,000 Test Photos
PetaPixel’s Jaron Schneider scored the iPhone 18 Pro 8.5 out of 10. He went in skeptical, pointing out that Xiaomi, Sony and Samsung had all tried variable apertures before and quietly dropped them, but changed his mind after shooting around 1,000 photos.
He ranked sharpness across the aperture range as f/2.8 first, then f/1.8, then f/4.0, then f/1.48, and called the new autofocus tracking comparable to a mirrorless camera, saying it held onto subjects better than Fujifilm or Lumix’s systems. He also liked the new Texture tools in Photographic Styles, including film grain and soft skin effects.
His main complaints were the inability to lock ISO and an ultra-wide camera he said “feels ancient” after going untouched for another year.
Wired Scores Both Phones a 9 Out of 10
Wired’s Julian Chokkattu gave both phones his highest marks in the roundup, citing stellar performance and cooling, great battery life, and cameras he called excellent and fun to use. His complaints were the higher price, the lack of a standard iPhone 18 this year, and the phones living in the shadow of the foldable iPhone Duo.
He said he stopped using Portrait mode altogether once he started shooting wide open at f/1.48 for natural background blur, since the effect came straight from the lens instead of software.
“I love it. I shoot manual on my mirrorless camera.”
Julian Chokkattu, Wired
He also tested the A20 Pro chip with Control, a graphically demanding 2019 title ported to iOS, and got playable frame rates with ray tracing enabled, something he said no previous iPhone could manage.
CNET Gives the iPhone 18 Pro Max the Highest Mark of the Roundup
CNET’s Patrick Holland scored the iPhone 18 Pro Max 9.3 out of 10, the highest of any review here, largely on the strength of the camera. He compared the shooting experience to using a Fujifilm X100VI, saying manual aperture and shutter speed control made the phone feel more like a dedicated camera.
His battery diary showed the phone lasting through five days of heavy testing on just three charges, and he called the 18 Pro and Pro Max the fastest-charging iPhones he has tested, hitting up to 82 percent in 30 minutes on a wired charger.
Despite the high score, he was blunt about who should buy one. He wrote that most people would be better served by the iPhone 17, even at its own higher starting price, unless they specifically want manual camera controls or shoot a lot of video in low light.
9to5Mac Praises the Color-Matched Design and Fixed Overheating
9to5Mac framed the iPhone 18 Pro as Apple refining a winning formula rather than reinventing it. The back panel now matches the aluminum frame in color, replacing last year’s polarizing two-tone look, and the site singled out the new burgundy and glacier blue colors as standouts.
On performance, it measured the A20 Pro chip delivering 22 to 27 percent faster CPU speed and 40 to 45 percent faster graphics than the iPhone 17 Pro, crediting a vapor chamber with three times the surface area for finally solving the heat issues that dogged last year’s model.
Its main criticism was weight. Both phones gained enough heft, the site said, that the iPhone 18 Pro Max is approaching an uncomfortable limit to hold for long periods.
Engadget Calls It an “S-Year” Upgrade With a Still-Rough Siri AI
Engadget described the iPhone 18 Pro as an iterative “S-year” upgrade, less dramatic than the redesign the iPhone 17 Pro got last year, but said it would feel like a big jump to anyone coming from an iPhone 16 Pro or older.
Its testing found the A20 Pro’s thermal management dramatically improved, with the phone running hot only once during the review period compared to the iPhone 17 Pro’s frequent overheating. Battery life lasted a day and a half to two days under normal use.
Siri AI was the weak point. Engadget said it struggled to offer varied meal suggestions and mispronounced some words, including “Slumberland,” during testing.
Mashable Finds the Real Upgrades on the Inside
Mashable’s Stan Schroeder titled his review “It’s what’s on the inside that counts,” since the exterior barely changed beyond the new burgundy and glacier colors. He measured the iPhone 18 Pro Max’s battery life climbing to 43 hours of video playback, up from 37 hours on the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
His camera testing produced a surprising result. With Night Mode left on, his iPhone 17 Pro Max sometimes outperformed the iPhone 18 Pro Max because its longer exposure time gathered more light, but once he manually disabled Night Mode on both phones, the iPhone 18 Pro Max pulled ahead with sharper, less noisy images.
His verdict was that the phone is not a necessary upgrade for iPhone 17 Pro owners, but a clear win for photographers, videographers and anyone who burns through battery fast.
CNN Underscored Sets a New Battery Record With the iPhone 18 Pro Max
CNN Underscored’s Henry T. Casey ran both phones through the outlet’s standard battery test and got the longest result it has ever recorded for a phone. The iPhone 18 Pro Max topped 30 hours of 4K video playback, edging out the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra by close to two hours.
He was especially impressed with Focus Tracking, which let him lock onto a moving subject at a concert and keep it sharp even at 8x zoom, and with the new Texture controls in Photographic Styles for adding film grain to photos.
His complaints matched several other reviews. He flagged another $100 price hike and the same Ceramic Shield durability concerns that led a colleague to shatter an iPhone 17 Pro Max screen in a single drop last year.
Tom’s Guide Flags Four Upgrades and Two Drawbacks in Its Hands-On
Tom’s Guide’s Mark Spoonauer published an early hands-on ahead of the full review. He singled out four things he liked:
- The variable aperture camera
- The faster and cooler A20 Pro chip
- Longer battery life
- A Siri AI that is finally smart enough for most requests
He tested Siri AI’s new Visual Intelligence by pointing the camera at a poster and having it read the dates straight into his calendar. But he said Siri AI still cannot hold a live back-and-forth conversation the way Gemini Live or ChatGPT’s voice mode can, calling that a real gap against the competition.
His two dislikes were the $100 price increase and the added weight on both models.
Video Reviewers Cover the Chip, the Unboxing and Everyday Use
Here are some YouTube video reviews of the new phones:
Where the Scores Land
| Outlet | Score |
|---|---|
| CNET | 9.3 / 10 (iPhone 18 Pro Max) |
| Wired | 9 / 10 |
| PetaPixel | 8.5 / 10 |
| The Verge | 8 / 10 |
| PCMag | Excellent, Editors’ Choice for the iPhone 18 Pro Max |
Our Take
I think the split across these reviews makes sense once you separate the camera from everything else. If you already own an iPhone 17 Pro, nearly every publication or YouTuber here agree this is not the year to upgrade. The chip, battery gains and design refinements are real, but they are not going to change how the phone feels in daily use.
Where I’d push back a little is on how quickly some reviews dismissed the variable aperture as a gimmick. Apple gave photographers real manual control over depth of field and light for the first time on an iPhone, in the stock camera app, with no subscription or third-party download required. That is worth more to the people who will use it, even if the average buyer leaves it on auto and never notices.
The bigger story might be how many of these reviews mention the iPhone Duo before they even get to their verdict. Apple’s foldable is pulling attention away from two phones that are, by these outlets’ own scoring, some of the highest rated iPhones in years.
The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max go on sale September 18, starting at $1,199 and $1,299.
