iPhone 18 Pro Lab Results: 16:43h Battery Score and a 172 DXOMARK Camera Rating

Two weeks after it reached stores at $1,199, the first independent measurements show where Apple's new Pro gained, and where it slipped.

The iPhone 18 Pro has been in stores since September 18, and the first independent lab numbers are now in. GSMArena published its full battery, charging and display tests on September 25, and DXOMARK has scored the camera. Together they answer the question Apple's launch presentation could not: how much of the promised improvement shows up when someone else measures it. For a phone that starts at $1,199 for 256 GB, $100 more than the base iPhone 17 Pro cost a year ago, that answer matters.

▶

iPhone 18 Pro specs →YouTube ↗

Battery life is the clearest gain. GSMArena gave the iPhone 18 Pro an Active Use Score of 16 hours 43 minutes and recorded longer runtimes than the previous model in all of its screen-on tests. That is a score for daily mixed use, not a promise that any one owner will see the same number, but it places the smaller Pro among the longer-lasting 6.3-inch phones. Apple credits the new A20 Pro chip, built on a 2-nanometer process, and GSMArena points to the same chip and software tuning as the likely reasons.

One detail matters for US buyers. The unit GSMArena tested was the physical-SIM version with a 4,056 mAh battery. The eSIM-only model sold in the United States has a larger 4,288 mAh cell, according to GSMArena's spec sheet, because dropping the SIM tray frees space inside. Apple's own claim of up to 36 hours of video playback for the Pro also refers to eSIM-only models. If anything, the lab score is likely to understate what a US unit can do, though nobody has published a test of that exact variant yet.

Charging got faster in a way you will notice. With a 45 W USB Power Delivery charger, GSMArena measured 42 percent after 15 minutes, 74 percent after 30 minutes and a full charge in 1 hour 2 minutes. The iPhone 17 Pro needed 1 hour 18 minutes to fill up in the same test. Apple quotes 50 percent in about 15 minutes, which GSMArena's result comes close to rather than matches. Wireless charging stays at 25 W over MagSafe and Qi2.

The display went the other way, slightly. GSMArena measured 783 nits at full manual brightness and 971 nits in automatic mode on a 75 percent white patch, against 818 and 1,012 nits on the iPhone 17 Pro, and a peak of 2,769 nits on a small highlight versus 2,889. Those are small differences that you are unlikely to see side by side outdoors, but they mean this year's screen is no brighter than last year's, whatever the spec sheet says. The speakers, on the other hand, measured louder, at -26.5 LUFS against -28.9 LUFS for the 17 Pro.

Raw speed rose as expected and sustained speed did not. GSMArena recorded 4,732 points single-core and 12,641 multi-core in Geekbench 6, and a peak of 7,942 in 3DMark's Wild Life Extreme graphics test. Under that test's repeated stress run, though, the phone held 48 percent of its peak, and it kept 72 percent in the APSI CPU stress test, which GSMArena calls a small step back from the previous generation. Apple says the new vapor chamber has three times the surface area of the iPhone 17 Pro's, but for long gaming sessions the chip still throttles hard.

The camera is the other headline. DXOMARK scored the iPhone 18 Pro 172, and Notebookcheck reports that puts it second in DXOMARK's global ranking, behind Huawei's Pura 80 Ultra. DXOMARK singles out the new variable aperture on the 48 MP main camera, which Apple lists as f/1.48 to f/4, for keeping several subjects sharp in the same shot, and rates the phone among the strongest it has tested in low light. Its main criticisms are long-range telephoto detail, where it says the Pura 80 Ultra and Google's Pixel 11 Pro XL do better, frequent flare and aliasing, and the lack of a portrait blur effect at night.

What the numbers do not change is the design: 9to5Mac notes the 18 Pro keeps the same body as the 17 Pro, in black, silver, glacier and burgundy, now with a smaller Dynamic Island. If you own a 17 Pro, the lab results argue for waiting; the gains are real but modest. If you are coming from an older iPhone, the battery and charging improvements are the ones you will feel every day. All figures here are as published by September 30, 2026, and battery results in particular can shift with iOS updates.

Original coverage: iPhone 18 Pro first lab results