iPhone 18 Pro review: modest upgrade brings notably better cooling and battery life
Apple's new iPhone 18 Pro looks much like its predecessor but gains a new A20 Pro chip that delivers improved thermal management, longer battery life and more flexible camera controls. The reviewer calls it the quintessential device of the outgoing Tim Cook era.
According to an Ars Technica review, the iPhone 18 Pro largely resembles last year's iPhone 17 Pro in appearance and core features, but several under-the-hood changes make it one of the more meaningful performance updates in recent memory.
Design and display
The phone is available in a new burgundy color alongside a darker black option. The main design change is a smaller Dynamic Island cutout at the top of the screen, achieved by moving the infrared camera underneath the OLED panel. The smaller cutout now supports displaying up to three live activities simultaneously, an increase from before.
New chip and thermal management
The centerpiece upgrade is the new A20 Pro chip, built on a 2-nanometer process compared to the previous 3-nanometer node. It features a six-core CPU, a seven-core GPU with a neural accelerator in each core, and a dual 16-core Neural Engine for AI tasks. Apple states the chip has the widest memory interface ever used in an iPhone, with 50 percent more bandwidth.
Thermal management has also been significantly improved through new chip packaging that places the processor beside the memory rather than stacked on top of it, along with a larger vapor chamber and a copper layer on the display plate. Apple claims up to 40 percent better sustained performance compared to the 17 Pro. In practical use, the reviewer noted the phone runs noticeably cooler in everyday scenarios such as gaming or video streaming.
Battery and cameras
Battery life has increased to up to 36 hours of offline video playback, up from 33 hours on the previous model, partly thanks to Apple's own C2 cellular modem, which uses less power than the previous Qualcomm modem. Wireless charging now reaches up to 25 watts.
The camera system remains largely unchanged, with the same triple 48-megapixel rear setup and 18-megapixel front camera, but adds a variable aperture and a new Photographic Styles 3 feature that allows adjusting photo texture in addition to color balance.
The review notes this marks the last year of Tim Cook's tenure as Apple's CEO.
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