iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional: specs, costs, in contrast

The iPhone 18 Professional has arrived with a brand new chip and digicam refinements over the iPhone 17 Professional. Here is how Apple’s newest Professional compares towards final 12 months’s mannequin, now with benchmarks.

Proper on schedule, Apple unveiled the iPhone 18 Professional at its fall occasion as the brand new Professional version to get. That’s, if you don’t need the large Professional Max model.

The follow-up to the iPhone 17 Professional that launched the aluminum unibody body and vapor chamber cooling, the brand new mannequin refines that components fairly than reinventing it.

That is how the iPhone 18 Professional compares towards the iPhone 17 Professional with the specs aspect by aspect.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional – Specs

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional – Bodily dimensions

The Professional is the smaller of the 2 upper-tier iPhone fashions in every era, accompanied by the Professional Max variant. It’s sometimes about the identical dimension as the usual mannequin of the era, representing an improve in efficiency and functionality.

The iPhone 17 Professional has a 5.91-inch size and a couple of.83-inch width, with a thickness of 0.34 inches. At 7.27 ounces, it was heavier than the titanium iPhone 16 Professional, owing to its change again to an aluminum unibody design.

With no actual change to the exterior design, the iPhone 18 Professional is virtually equivalent on the subject of the exterior look. It is the identical width, peak, and depth as its predecessor.

The iPhone 18 Professional is somewhat heavier, although, at 7.44 ounces.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional: Entrance and aspect view of the iPhone 18 Professional

The brand new mannequin retains the Digicam Plateau launched with the iPhone 17 Professional, which stretches throughout the again of the system. This can be a useful house Apple created, giving it a bit extra room to make some inner enhancements.

There’s one unavoidable exterior change: colour. The earlier mannequin used Silver, Deep Blue, and Cosmic Orange, whereas the brand new one is Black, Silver, Glacier, and Burgundy.

With the exclusion of the standout Cosmic Orange from a 12 months in the past, the brand new vary appears to be somewhat extra grown up. If you would like a playful Professional mannequin, it will be by means of your alternative of case.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional – Show

The iPhone 17 Professional used a 6.3-inch Tremendous Retina XDR OLED show. It is a reasonably large display screen, if not the biggest of the era, however was nonetheless comfy to carry.

At 2,622 by 1,206 pixels, it delivered 460 pixels per inch, the usual pixel density for Apple’s Professional line. The Professional fashions additionally usually had ProMotion, an adaptive refresh charge as much as 120Hz.

The iPhone 17 Professional additionally raised out of doors peak brightness to three,000 nits, with a 2 million-to-one distinction ratio. For regular indoor utilization, you would rely on a typical brightness of 1,000 nits, 1,600 nits for HDR content material.

The iPhone 18 Professional carries over what appears to be the identical 6.3-inch Tremendous Retina XDR panel. The decision, distinction ratio, ProMotion, and the three,000-nit peak brightness are all in place.

The remainder of the show characteristic set is unchanged, together with Broad Colour, HDR, and True Tone.

Actually, the one change within the iPhone 18 Professional show is with the TrueDepth Digicam on the prime. It has managed to engineer the digicam to take up rather less house, enabling iOS to make use of a smaller Dynamic Island and show as much as three Dwell Actions without delay.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional – Cameras

The iPhone 17 Professional launched the Professional Fusion Digicam System, with three 48MP sensors. The Fusion Major used an f/1.78 aperture with 100% Focus Pixels, in addition to a second-gen sensor-shift optical picture stabilization (OIS) system.

The Fusion Extremely Broad coated a 120-degree area of view with an f/2.2 aperture, and used Hybrid Focus Pixels. The Fusion Telephoto reached a 4x optical zoom with a tetraprism design, Hybrid Focus Pixels, and an f/2.8 aperture.

Each the Fusion Major and Fusion Telephoto used a cropping trick to faux the creation of two extra “optical high quality” cameras. The Major was cropped to a 12MP 2x Telephoto, whereas the Telephoto turned an 8x Telephoto.

This equates to an 8x optical-quality zoom-in and a 2x optical zoom-out, which Apple says is a 16x optical-quality zoom vary. Add in digital zoom, and it will get to 40x total.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional: The digicam plateau hasn’t modified. There’s a new variable aperture system this time round.

Computational Pictures has been a giant subject for Apple, serving to enhance the picture high quality for its customers. The iPhone 17 Professional launched an up to date Photonic Engine that elevated using machine studying to chop noise and enhance colour accuracy. There have been additionally extra Photographic Kinds choices out there, too.

With regards to the iPhone 18 Professional, many of the beats for the digicam system are equivalent. The triple 48MP digicam setup is there, as is the cropped digicam, the 8x optical-quality zoom in, and the 16x optical-quality zoom vary.

Nevertheless, there’s a headline characteristic change right here for the Fusion Major, because it now has a variable aperture system. As an alternative of the f/1.78 of the iPhone 17 Professional’s Major, the iPhone 18 Professional can shift between f/1.48 and f/4.0.

This can be a huge improve for critical photographers, as a variable aperture can permit for particular elements of {a photograph} to be in focus whereas defocussing others. The six blades making up the aperture imply you’ll be able to create that all-important bokeh blur for portraits as you take the shot.

That does not sound like that a lot to informal customers who will likely be conversant in the present computational blur that may be utilized to pictures. However, for avid photographers who can see the occasional glitches and errors that the computational technique cannot correctly deal with, handbook management will likely be a really welcome characteristic.

Mixed with the brand new Professional Controls, which is able to give customers extra entry to settings and options, it ought to permit for far more artistic management over the outcomes.

This is not the one huge digicam characteristic. With the rise of AI, there’s now an authentication system for the iPhone 18 Professional to substantiate the photographs you see are real and never generative AI.

Apple Reference Picture will ship signed sensor information to Personal Cloud Compute to develop an “unalterable reference picture,” which may be seen in Pictures like a digital unfavourable.

Once more, for the typical consumer, this does not look like a significant characteristic. However for journalists and anybody who depends on the accuracy of their photographs and making an attempt to keep away from accusations of utilizing AI, it is a huge transfer by Apple.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional: The brand new variable aperture digicam system – Picture Credit score: Apple

The entrance digicam of the iPhone 17 Professional was upgraded to a brand new 18MP Heart Stage digicam. Its get together trick was using a sq. sensor, in order that customers can change between portrait and panorama orientations for selfies, however with no need to bodily rotate the digicam.

Regardless of the sensor change, it was nonetheless able to utilizing Face ID.

There is not any actual change right here for the iPhone 18 Professional, although Apple has redesigned the Dynamic Island that hides it.

With regards to video, the iPhone 17 Professional was able to 4K Dolby Imaginative and prescient at as much as 120fps, with a 30fps 4K Dolby Imaginative and prescient Cinematic Mode, 4K Dolby Imaginative and prescient Slo-mo at 120fps or 240fps for 1080p, and a couple of.8K Dolby Imaginative and prescient Motion Mode at 60fps.

On the skilled aspect, there was 4K ProRes video at as much as 120fps with exterior recording, ProRes RAW assist, Apple Log 2, Genlock Help, and Academy Colour Encoding System assist.

The iPhone 18 Professional follows an identical path, although Cinematic Mode results now work at 4K 60fps as an alternative of 30.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional – Processing and Efficiency

The A19 Professional within the iPhone 17 Professional was a significant step for efficiency, thanks to an enormous thermal administration trick. Apple added vapor chamber cooling to handle warmth, claiming as much as 40 % higher sustained efficiency than the A18 Professional.

The A19 Professional is a six-core CPU with two efficiency and 4 effectivity cores, which have been the quickest in an iPhone on the time of launch.

There was the same old 16-core Neural Engine, too, however this time Apple pulled a brand new trick with the GPU. Every of the six GPU cores had per-core Neural Accelerators, which meant the GPU might higher help the Neural Engine for AI and graphics duties.

The iPhone 18 Professional strikes to the brand new A20 Professional chip, utilizing a 2-nanometer course of and a brand new packaging approach to enhance efficiency and energy effectivity. This time with an excellent better concentrate on AI.

The six-core CPU has two tremendous cores and 4 effectivity cores, however this time Apple has added Neural Accelerators to these CPU cores too. Then there’s the GPU, which is now a seven-core design that Apple says is 40% quicker than the A19 Professional.

Once more Neural Accelerators are at play right here, and with another core to play with too.

The Neural Engine has additionally been upgraded to a Twin 16-core Neural Engine. Actually, it is two 16-core Neural Engines working as a 32-core model, double that of the A19 Professional.

There’s additionally a reminiscence bandwidth increase as effectively, with Apple saying there’s 50% extra within the A20 Professional than the A19 Professional.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional: Apple has made the vapor chamber cooling larger and higher within the iPhone 18 Professional.

We even have one other issue to take care of this time round. Whereas the iPhone 17 Professional added a vapor chamber cooling system to the A19 Professional, Apple expanded the idea within the A20 Professional.

The brand new model has 3 times extra floor space than the unique. Even higher, with the reminiscence now side-by-side with the primary silicon as an alternative of on prime of it, each are actually extra effectively cooled.

Following the launch of the iPhone 18 Professional, benchmarks began to seem on Geekbench 7. Utilizing outcomes that appear to be correct, we will have a good suggestion of how the iPhone 17 Professional matches up towards the newer chip.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional: Apple’s made the vapor chamber cooling larger and higher within the iPhone 18 Professional.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional: Preliminary single-core Geekbench 7 outcomes

For the single-core check, the iPhone 18 Professional crosses the 4,000 barrier. At 3,153 for the iPhone 17 Professional, the latest mannequin’s chip is 27% higher at single-core duties, representing nearly all of on a regular basis smartphone utilization.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional: Preliminary Geekbench 7 multi-core scores.

On the multi-core aspect, there is a related bounce as much as 11,460, the iPhone 18 Professional breaks into 5 digits for the primary time.

Over the 8,764 reported for the iPhone 17 Professional, this works out to be a 31% enchancment.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional: The preliminary Geekbench 7 outcomes for Metallic.

On to Metallic, and the iPhone 17 Professional had an honest 42,452 for its benchmark itemizing. The iPhone 18 Professional shatters that with 62,302, with a rating about 47% increased.

We are able to safely say that the A20 will likely be higher performance-wise for many who choose it up.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional – Connectivity

The iPhone 17 Professional supported 5G throughout mmWave and sub-6GHz bands. Domestically, it used Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.

When you have been in a blackspot, the iPhone 17 Professional included assist for Emergency SOS through Satellite tv for pc and Roadside Help through Satellite tv for pc. These are very useful in an emergency in the event you’re in a distant location.

A key change final era was the Apple N1 wi-fi networking chip. This Apple-designed part dealt with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Thread, enhancing Private Hotspot and AirDrop efficiency.

The iPhone 18 Professional retains Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and the N1 wi-fi chip as soon as once more. Nevertheless, Apple has continued its transfer towards in-house silicon with the C2 modem, which it says can present quicker uploads than the C1X whereas consuming 15% much less power.

The iPhone 17 Professional additionally used a second-generation Extremely Wideband chip and Thread, which helped energy the iPhone’s Discover My options and for good residence connectivity, respectively. The again included NFC, used for Apple Pay as standard.

As soon as once more, there is not any change right here for the iPhone 18 Professional.

When it comes to bodily connectivity, the iPhone 17 Professional had a USB-C port with a 10Gbps switch charge. That is very a lot wanted for transferring movies off the iPhone, equivalent to when it’s used for exterior video recording.

Apple hasn’t modified the iPhone 18 Professional right here both. It is nonetheless 10Gbps.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional – Energy and Battery

The iPhone 17 Professional reached as much as 33 hours of video playback, or 30 hours streamed. That was a robust enchancment over the iPhone 16 Professional’s 27-hour determine.

Quick charging on the iPhone 17 Professional hit 50 % in 20 minutes with a 40W charger. Wi-fi charging reached as much as 25W with MagSafe, when utilizing an appropriate charger.

Over on the iPhone 18 Professional, Apple claims there’s as much as 24 hours of “typical use” for a full battery. The video playback occasions do go up, with it able to 36 hours for domestically saved movies and 33 hours streamed.

Quick-charging now hits 50% cost in “round quarter-hour,” in keeping with Apple, when used with a 60W adapter or increased over USB-C. Utilizing a 35W adapter and MagSafe Charger, it could possibly get to 50% cost in about half-hour.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional – Different Options

Each carry an IP68 ranking for water and mud resistance.

The iPhone 17 Professional dealt with submersion as much as 6 meters for half-hour, however for most individuals, that meant it might deal with the occasional splash with ease. Apple says the iPhone 18 Professional can do the identical.

The iPhone 17 Professional had each the Motion Button and Digicam Management on the aspect, which the iPhone 18 Professional additionally maintains. The previous could possibly be used to set off capabilities shortly, whereas the latter supplied a capacitive shutter button that could possibly be swiped for further digicam capabilities.

Crash Detection was current for computerized emergency help within the iPhone 17 Professional. Likewise, you’ll be able to crash and get help robotically with the iPhone 18 Professional too.

Likewise, each fashions have Apple’s suite of “through Satellite tv for pc” options, together with Emergency SOS, Roadside Help, Messages, and Discover My.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional – Capability and Pricing

The iPhone 17 Professional began at $1,099 for 256GB, having dropped the 128GB tier used within the iPhone 16 Professional. It rose to $1,499 for the 1TB model.

Rumors mentioned the iPhone 18 Professional can be costlier, partly due to the continuing reminiscence disaster. Sadly, the rumors have been proper, however not painfully.

The bottom iPhone 18 Professional is $1,199, $100 greater than the iPhone 17 Professional, for a capability of 256GB. The 512GB model at $1,399 and the 1TB at $1,799 are costlier than the iPhone 17 Professional counterparts, extra so than the bottom mannequin.

Nevertheless, whereas the iPhone 17 Professional did not have the 2TB possibility that the Professional Max had, there is not any such limitation for the iPhone 18 Professional. You may get the 2TB variant for $2,399.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional – Definitely worth the Improve?

When evaluating new iPhone fashions with older variations, the final recommendation is that, except there are a whole lot of adjustments to learn your major utilization wants, you most likely needn’t improve.

For a one-year distinction between fashions, that is very true. Fairly frankly, that is very a lot the case right here for many customers.

The primary issues Apple have targeted on are efficiency and the rear digicam.

The change to the A20 Professional chip with extra GPU cores, reminiscence bandwidth, and a large vapor chamber improve offers it a substantial leg up when it comes to efficiency towards the A19 Professional.

Nevertheless, the true profit goes to be within the AI area, because of these CPU core Neural Accelerators and the doubled-in-size Neural Engine.

On-device AI goes to be the most important characteristic of the iPhone 18 Professional. When you’re a complicated Siri consumer, otherwise you depend on AI capabilities in apps so much, then the A20’s adjustments are going to be price contemplating.

iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional: the iPhone 18 Professional colour vary.

The images aspect will likely be a great factor for these within the visible arts. It will increase the flexibleness of the digicam sensor, enabling the iPhone 18 Professional for use in far more artistic methods, because of that variable aperture.

It is one thing that videographers and content material creators will likely be eager to make use of. Journalists too, in the event that they’re used to utilizing an iPhone digicam, due to having the ability to show a picture is real and never generated by AI.

For iPhone 17 Professional house owners, an improve after a single 12 months is unlikely to be worthwhile except one of many new options is a precedence. For house owners of older fashions, the iPhone 18 Professional represents a considerable generational leap.

Except you are very pro-AI or photography-focused, a one-year improve most likely is not on the playing cards.

The exception is clients who’re signing up with Apple Improve, the alternative for the iPhone Improve Program. They will actually justify an early improve to the brand new mannequin, as long as they comply with the phrases of the plan.

What Apple has demonstrated with the iPhone 18 Professional is that the Professional line continues to develop by means of inner refinement. The larger adjustments are as soon as once more contained in the system fairly than on the surface.

The place to purchase Apple’s iPhone 18 Professional vs iPhone 17 Professional

Preorders for Apple’s iPhone 18 Professional start on Saturday, Sept. 12, and wi-fi carriers are anticipated to supply incentives to encourage buyers to improve.

Soar straight to service offers at:

The iPhone 17 Professional, in the meantime, can be eligible for incentives with as much as $1,099.99 in invoice credit.

• T-Cell: Get an iPhone 17 Professional for as little as $0/mo for 36 months*
• AT&T: Get an iPhone 17 Professional for as little as $0/mo with a qualifying commerce and eligible plan*
• Verizon: Get an iPhone 17 Professional for as little as $22.91/mo for 48 months*


*Phrases and circumstances apply, and provides are topic to alter. Please see the service’s website for particulars.

Up to date September 12, 2026 at 10:20AM Japanese: Added comparisons primarily based on preliminary benchmark outcomes.