Choosing an iPhone used to be relatively straightforward: you picked the Pros if you wanted the best, or the regular model if you wanted to keep some money for food. Then Apple introduced the iPhone Air, a phone so thin it looks like it’s been on Mounjaro for a year, and the decision got a little bit harder. There’s also the iPhone Duo, but unless you want your phone to fold in half, are willing to spend upwards of $1,000, and are happy to wait another few weeks, that one’s a separate conversation.
So here we are, ignoring the Duo for now. The iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max are Apple’s newest flagships, featuring the new A20 Pro processor, a triple rear camera setup with a variable aperture, and the longest battery life Apple has ever claimed for an iPhone. Meanwhile, the iPhone Air is a year older, but it’s still the lightest and slimmest iPhone you can buy, and it’s gorgeous, with a much better-looking design than the others.
I’ve tested all three in pockets, bags and occasionally on my face at 1am to help you work out which is right for you. Here’s how they compare on price, design, features and battery life, and which one I’d buy depending on how you use your phone.
Price and release date
The Apple iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max went on sale on 18 September, so they’ve been available for several weeks. Unlike the Apple Watch models, the Pros saw a price increase, with the iPhone 18 Pro starting at $1,199/£1,199 and the iPhone 18 Pro Max at $1,299/£1,299, compared with the iPhone 17 Pro models, which were $100/£100 cheaper.
There’s good news this year for anyone looking for the top storage model: both the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max come in a 2TB option, whereas last year you had to choose the Max to get it. The bad news is that you’ll really pay for it. The starting price gets you 256GB, with 512GB costing an extra $200/£200, 1TB a further $400/£400, and 2TB topping out at $2,399/£2,399 for the Pro and $2,499/£2,499 for the Pro Max. That’s a lot of money for somewhere to keep 4,000 near-identical photos of your cat. Both the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max come in four colours: Silver, Black, Burgundy, and Glacier.
Now for the iPhone Air. This skinny thing was announced in September 2025, so it’s been around for over a year now, having gone on sale on 19 September. It initially launched at $999/£999, but price increases have affected this model too since then, with its RRP now $1,099/£1,099. Look around, though, as you should find it cheaper than that.
The base storage is 256GB here too, and it also comes in 512GB (which is $200/£200 more) and 1TB (which is another $400/£400). There is no 2TB option, though there are four colour options: Sky Blue, Light Gold, Cloud White, and Space Black.
Design and build
Put the iPhone 18 Pro, 18 Pro Max, and iPhone Air side by side, and you might notice a family resemblance, but the iPhone Air looks more like the iPhone Duo than the Pros, despite the Duo folding and having a different aspect ratio. As such, you will easily be able to tell the iPhone Air and the iPhone 18 Pros apart: the Pros adopt a rugged look with a two-tone rear and a chunky camera housing at the top featuring three camera lenses, while the Air is very slim, with a simpler, much more streamlined rear with just one camera lens. In short, the Pros look like they’ve spent the summer at the gym, while the Air looks like it’s been on a yoga retreat.
The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max opt for an aluminium unibody, while the Air gets a titanium frame. That might seem like the support act arrived in a limo while the headliner took the train, but the Air needs titanium’s strength to support its slim frame. Meanwhile, the Pros’ aluminium shell is light, tough and effective at dissipating heat, so there are sound reasons for it, even if it scuffs more easily than the titanium used on the iPhone 16 Pros. Unless you’re going for the “well-loved” look, I advise getting yourself a case.
The Air is 5.64mm thick, thin enough that you half expect it to bend in a strong breeze (don’t worry, it won’t). Both Pro models come in at 8.75mm, so they’re more than 3mm thicker. That might not sound like much, but hold them after the Air, and you’ll definitely notice the difference.
Weight follows the same pattern. The Air weighs 165g, the 18 Pro 211g, and the 18 Pro Max 249g. That makes the Pro Max nearly 100g heavier than the Air, a difference you’ll notice after an hour of scrolling in bed, usually when it lands on your face. Both Pros have also gained weight since last year: the 18 Pro is 7g heavier than the 17 Pro, and the Pro Max is 18g heavier. Most of that seems to be battery, and carrying extra weight for a phone that lasts longer will be an acceptable trade-off for many, much like a winter coat that’s heavy but keeps you dry, but it’s something to keep in mind.
In terms of size, the Air sits neatly between the two Pros. The 6.3-inch Pro is the easiest to use one-handed, at 150mm x 71.9mm. The 6.9-inch Pro Max, at 163.4mm x 78mm, really needs two hands and probably a bigger pair of jeans. The Air’s 6.5-inch screen sits within a 156.2 x 74.7mm body, so you get a bigger display than the smaller Pro without stretching your thumb to its limit.
All three have Ceramic Shield 2 on the front, which Apple says offers three times the scratch resistance, and Ceramic Shield on the back. They’re all rated IP68 for up to 30 minutes at a depth of 6 metres, so a drop in the bath or a spilt pint is fine. Every model also has an Action button and Camera Control, so your fingers will find the same buttons no matter which you pick.
Features
All three of these phones have what Apple calls a Super Retina XDR OLED panel with ProMotion up to 120Hz, an Always-On display and the Dynamic Island. That means they are largely the same in terms of display experience, though the Dynamic Island on the iPhone 18 Pro models is smaller than on the Air and can show up to three activities simultaneously, compared with two on the Air.
They share the same brightness figures, though, at 1,000 nits typical, 1,600 nits for HDR and 3,000 nits outdoors. That’s bright enough to read your boarding pass in midday sun, and they all dim to 1 nit, so checking the time at 3am on any of them won’t wake you up completely. Pixel density is 460ppi on all three, so icons and text are crisp and detailed, whatever model you select. The only real difference from a screen perspective, apart from Dynamic Island, is size, at 6.3 inches for the Pro, 6.5 for the Air and 6.9 for the Pro Max.
Inside, though, the gap is more noticeable, depending on what you use your phone for. Both Pros use the new A20 Pro chip, built on a 2-nanometre process. It features a 6-core CPU, a 7-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a dual 16-core Neural Engine. Meanwhile, the Air opts for last year’s A19 Pro, built on a 3-nanometre process and featuring a 6-core CPU, a 5-core GPU, and a single 16-core Neural Engine.
In everyday use, the A19 Pro is still very quick, and you won’t be waiting around for Instagram to open. You might notice the difference in heavy gaming with hardware ray tracing and in demanding on-device AI tasks, where those extra GPU cores and the second Neural Engine should help, but for WhatsApp and Wordle, either chip is far more than you need.
Smarts don’t separate them either. All three get the full Apple Intelligence package, including Siri AI, the redesigned and more contextually aware Siri that can finally not only handle a follow-up question but is actually helpful too. I’ve asked it all sorts of questions over the last few months, and I’ve been continually surprised by its responses, which is something I never thought I’d write about Siri.
The cameras are where the real differences lie, and where the Air shows the compromises it made for its slender frame. The Pros have three 48MP Fusion cameras: a main camera, an ultra-wide and a telephoto. Between them, you get optical-quality zoom at 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 4x and 8x, which is enough to see who’s singing at a gig without pushing through the crowd.
The main camera now has a variable aperture from f/1.48 to f/4.0. In practice, that means you get more detailed images with more in focus, rather than everything being blurred in the background. You also get Pro controls for aperture, shutter speed and white balance, plus a live histogram, letting photography fans fine-tune it all, with the option to add those controls to the top of the camera app for quick access. The Pros also get some other extras this year: Photographic Styles 3, smart focus tracking, improved low-light video and the ability to add Cinematic mode effects to footage after you’ve shot it, which is ideal for anyone who only realises it was a moment after it’s over.
The Air has a single 48MP Fusion main camera with 1x and 2x options. It takes good photos, but without an ultra-wide you can’t step back to fit the whole family into a small kitchen, and you can’t zoom in on your dog or cat either. That said, the selfie camera is the same on all three: an 18MP Centre Stage camera that can rotate the frame without you turning the phone, plus Dual Capture for recording yourself and the scene at once.
Video is where the Pros pull even further ahead. They shoot 4K Dolby Vision at up to 120fps on the main camera and support ProRes RAW, Apple Log 2, Genlock and the Academy Color Encoding System. If those terms mean nothing to you, the Air’s 4K at 60fps will be more than adequate. If they sounded exciting, you probably already ordered a Pro while reading this.
From a safety standpoint, it’s equal again. All three offer Emergency SOS via satellite, Roadside Assistance via satellite and Crash Detection, so the Air won’t leave you stranded on the hard shoulder any more than a Pro would.
Battery life
Apple measures battery life in hours of video playback, which is a reasonable benchmark if your typical day involves watching an entire series back to back on the train. It’s not most people’s reality, but on paper it offers a fair way to compare these three phones, and the gap between them is bigger than you might expect.
The iPhone 18 Pro Max leads by some distance, with Apple quoting up to 43 hours of video playback, six hours more than the 17 Pro Max’s 37 hours. In use, you’d struggle to run it flat in a day unless you spent the day navigating, filming and streaming at full brightness.
The standard 18 Pro is rated for up to 34 hours, three more than last year’s 17 Pro. That should get most people comfortably from morning alarm to bedtime, with enough left for a late Uber home without begging a stranger for a charger. In several weeks of testing, it hasn’t let me down yet.
Then there’s the Air, with up to 27 hours. That’s not bad given its skinny frame, and it’s plenty for a normal day of messaging, browsing and the odd podcast. But physics is physics: a 5.64mm body leaves less room for a battery. It’s seven hours behind the 18 Pro and a whopping 16 hours behind the Pro Max.
Heavy users, keen photographers, and anyone who leaves Strava running for a long Sunday ride should expect to be looking for a plug before the evening is out. However, in testing I was pleasantly surprised by how long the Air lasted – I expected much worse, so you may not be too disappointed. It’s more that you might need to think about bringing a charger more than you would with the iPhone 18 Pro, especially the 18 Pro Max.
For charging, both Pro models charge wirelessly at up to 25W via MagSafe with a 30W or higher adapter, while the Air tops out at 20W with the same adapter. It’s not a huge difference, but when you’re grabbing a quick top-up before heading out, every minute on the charger counts, and the Air needs a bit longer. For wired charging, the discrepancy is even greater. The iPhone 18 Pros support up to 60W, while the iPhone Air supports 20W so the Pros race to full while the Air takes the scenic route.
Apple iPhone 18 pro vs 18 Pro Max vs iPhone Air: Which should you choose?
All three of these phones are great, but they are built for different people. The iPhone Air is the style choice. It’s remarkably thin and light, has a titanium frame, and its screen is just as bright and smooth as the Pros’. It also costs less than either of them, especially if you shop around. In exchange, you get one rear camera, an older chip, slower charging, and a battery that lasts a normal day but leaves little room for error or a missed stop on the train. If your phone is mainly for messages, maps, music and the occasional photo of a nice sunset, the Air delivers most of the experience for less money and less weight.
The iPhone 18 Pro is the one I’d recommend to most people who can afford it. It’s the most comfortable to use one-handed, its battery should easily get you through a full day, and it has the most complete camera system on an iPhone, with a decent zoom range, variable aperture and video tools that make the Air’s single lens seem limited. It’s heavier and thicker than the Air, and costs $100/£100 more than last year, but you’ll appreciate it every time you zoom in at a gig or shoot in low light.
The iPhone 18 Pro Max is for those who rarely put their phones down. It has the largest screen, the best battery life of the three by some distance, and the same top-tier cameras as the Pro, making it the easiest choice for travellers, content creators and anyone who considers a power bank a personal failure. Just be ready for the weight, the price, and the occasional complaint from your jeans pocket.
In short, buy the iPhone Air if you want a phone that looks and feels special and you mostly do everyday tasks. Buy the iPhone 18 Pro if you want the best cameras and features in a size that’s still easy to manage. Buy the iPhone 18 Pro Max if you want everything Apple has to offer and battery life that lasts well beyond a day. And if you’re tempted by the Air purely because it makes every other phone look chunky, that’s a perfectly good reason in my book – I won’t tell anyone.
Read more: I’m not a folding phone fan, but after using Apple iPhone Duo I think it might change my mind
