Apple iPhone 18 Pro vs Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max

EDITORIAL: After last year's major design re-shuffle Apple is back to minimal upgrades. 18 Pro gets an obligatory new chip, faster (but overall on a slow side) charging, smaller selfie camera island and a variable exposure main camera... but the redemption lies in endurance gains brought by A20 Pro, Apple's first 2nm chip. It makes 18 Pro finish a day of us with 10-20% battery life - and that makes out a TOP Compact contender.

EDITORIAL: Apple decided to introduce an aluminium frame for it's Pro phones after years of promoting steel and titanium as better options. The camera bump now stretches across the top portion of the back to allow for a bigger battery and the new cooling chamber. These make for the biggest design changes in years and it's a needed move considering there is much more Android competition in the premium segment. All of the back cameras are now 48MP but photography is not showing improvement over 16 Pro Max while phones from Vivo, Huawei, Vivo and Xiaomi now offer better pics. A new 18MP selfie produces great photos (as did the old one) and iPhone Pros still record the best videos, front and back. New A19 Pro is a good processor but not as powerful as are the latest SnapDragon and Mediatec chips. iOS 26 brings Liquid Glass design language while keeping the fundamentals the same. UI design feels outdated with multiple pages of icons and (while labels can now be removed) the overall design is not efficient.