iPhone 18 Pro Reviews: Excellent Yet… Meh?

The first iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max reviews have been published today by selected tech websites and YouTube channels, ahead of the devices beginning to arrive to customers and launching in stores this Friday, September 18. While the iPhone 17 Pro models featured a major design overhaul last year, the iPhone 18 Pro models look the same overall and have a set of more incremental year-over-year upgrades related to the cameras, battery life, and performance. With the new A20 Pro chip, the first 2nm chip in a smartphone, Apple said the iPhone 18 Pro models deliver up to 20% faster CPU performance and up to 40% faster graphics performance compared to the A19 Pro chip in the iPhone 17 Pro.

‘s Raymond Wong benchmarked the A20 Pro chip: I ran Geekbench 7’s CPU benchmark on the iPhone 18 Pro and compared results with the iPhone 17 Pro. Both phones were running the official iOS 27 release. The iPhone 18 Pro scored 4,027 for single-core and 11,540 for multi-core, and the iPhone 17 Pro mustered 3,258 on single-core and 9,167 on multi-core.

That works out to a 24% boost for single-core performance and a 26% boost for multi-core. A revamped vapor chamber cooling system in the iPhone 18 Pro models is three times larger than the one in the iPhone 17 Pro models, for better heat dissipation. This allows the A20 Pro to achieve peak, sustained performance for longer.

The iPhone 18 Pro is Apple doubling down on what it thinks a “Pro” iPhone should be. It’s faster, heavier, has longer-lasting battery life, and more capable.

Plus, there’s a new variable aperture camera leading the way. I’ve spent the last week using the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.

Earlier today, MediaTek unveiled the Dimensity 9600 Pro, its latest flagship smartphone chipset, which is built on a 2nm process. Oppo has already confirmed that its Find X10 Pro Max will be among the first devices to use it, but it won’t actually be the first to be unveiled.

Here’s everything you need to know. IPhone 18 Pro review: More of a great thing.

IPhone 18 Pro review: More of a great thing Chance Miller Sep 16 2026.

That’s because vivo has one-upped Oppo by exactly one day. Vivo is launching the X500 Pro and X500 Pro Max on September 21, whereas Oppo is announcing the Find X10 Pro Max on September 22.

Thus, the X500 Pro and X500 Pro Max will be the first devices to be made official with the Dimensity 9600 Pro inside. Vivo X500 Pro and X500 Pro Max will be the first to use MediaTek’s Dimensity 9600 Pro.

Vivo X500 Pro and X500 Pro Max will be the first to use MediaTek’s Dimensity 9600 Pro – com news ADVERTISEMENT vivo X500 Pro and X500 Pro Max will be the first to use MediaTek’s Dimensity 9600 Pro Post your comment Comments (9) Vlad 16 September 2026 vivo Android Earlier today, MediaTek unveiled the Dimensity 9600 Pro, its latest flagship smartphone chipset, which is built on a 2nm process. Vivo has today revealed this fact, that it’s obviously very proud of, through its official Weibo account.

Vivo further teases the fact that the X500 Pro series will have support for 4K120fps 10bit Log recording and output, a high-performance imaging NPU 2.0 with "industry-leading 60fps autofocus", a self-developed imaging chip which enables "industry-leading 4K Dolby Vision portrait video", and a "new high-performance AI processor". Source (in Chinese) Add as a preferred source on Google Related articles vivo X500 stars in a new video vivo shows all colors of the X500 Pro Max vivo X500’s new design revealed ahead of launch vivo X500 Pro Max design revealed ahead of launch Reader comments.

Wong on the iPhone 18 Pro’s thermal management: I don’t think the iPhone 18 Pros got hot once doing anything normal that would cause it to heat up. Not even shooting 4K resolution video at 60 fps under the heatwave that baked Cupertino during the Apple launch event could overheat it.

Both of the iPhone 18 Pro models have longer battery life compared to the previous generation — especially the iPhone 18 Pro Max. Fast charging to 50% now takes 15 minutes, down from 20 minutes.