Engadget's review of the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max finds Apple's latest flagship to be an incremental "S-year" update rather than a dramatic overhaul, following last year's redesigned iPhone 17 Pro. With no standard iPhone 18 announced and the new foldable iPhone Duo not yet available, the Pro models are effectively the only new Apple "candybar" handsets on offer, making this review a benchmark for how the rest of the range compares.

The headline changes are a smaller Dynamic Island, achieved through display engineering that lets Face ID work beneath a smaller cutout, plus new Burgundy and Glacier colour options, camera improvements including variable aperture, and performance and battery gains alongside iOS 27 features such as Siri AI. Screen sizes (6.3 and 6.9 inches), Ceramic Shield 2 coverings, 120Hz ProMotion displays, the triple 48-megapixel camera system and IP68 water resistance all carry over unchanged from the iPhone 17 Pro. The new phones are only marginally heavier, though their aluminium frames are noted as more scratch-prone than older titanium models.