iPhone 18 Pro: $100 More Than Last Year, Same 256GB to Start

The iPhone 18 Pro costs $100 more than the iPhone 17 Pro did at launch, and it still starts at 256GB. Apple’s release lists the Pro from $1,199 and the Pro Max from $1,299, against $1,099 and $1,199 a year ago. The extra money is not buying storage.

On paper it buys three things: a Main camera whose aperture you can change, the A20 Pro chip, and faster wired charging. The 8x zoom at 200mm is the same reach as last year.

The phone reaches buyers on Friday 18 September.

Last year’s launch against this year’s

	iPhone 17 Pro, 2025	iPhone 18 Pro, 2026
Pro, starting price (US)	$1,099	$1,199
Pro Max, starting price (US)	$1,199	$1,299
Base storage	256GB	256GB
Chip	A19 Pro	A20 Pro
Aperture control	None	Four settings
Longest optical-quality zoom	8x, 200mm	8x, 200mm
Wired charge to 50%	20 minutes	About 15 minutes
Video playback, eSIM-only, best model	Up to 39 hours	Up to 45 hours (Pro Max)

All figures are Apple’s, from its two launch releases and the 18 Pro specs page. The battery line is for the eSIM-only models; the difference between an eSIM and a physical SIM is covered separately.

What the $100 goes on

The camera you can stop down. Apple says the Main camera brings “aperture control to iPhone for the first time”, with six blades and four settings. Its own sample captions run from f/1.48 for low light to f/4 for keeping a group photo sharp front to back. New Pro controls add manual shutter speed, white balance and a histogram.

A new chip. A20 Pro is built on a 2-nanometre process, and Apple claims a GPU “up to 40 percent faster than A19 Pro” and 50% more memory bandwidth. A larger vapor chamber, three times the surface area of last year’s according to Apple, is there to hold performance up for longer.

Faster charging, if you own the adapter. The 15-minute figure assumes a 60W-capable adapter, sold separately. A phone does not draw a charger’s full rating all the time, which is why a 65W charger is not charging your phone at 65W.

Smaller changes: a Dynamic Island that can show three Live Activities at once, Apple’s new C2 modem with mmWave in the US, and a Reference mode that saves signed sensor data so edits can be checked against the original.

Whether to move from a 17 Pro

If your 17 Pro’s zoom and storage already suit you, the main differences Apple lists come down to the aperture, the chip, faster charging and, on the Pro Max, longer video playback. Whether those are worth a new phone depends on how you shoot and how you charge. It is the question we set out in when a newer model is not the better buy.

If price is what holds you back, Apple’s own trade-in credit for iPhone 13 or later runs from $175 to $885, and a refurbished phone is the other route. Refurbished is worth it when you know who backs the warranty.

And if you are weighing a Pro against Apple’s foldable, the other side is in iPhone Duo, on paper.