iPhone 18 Pro launches to battery and pricing doubts

Apple's ↘ 0.26% iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max went on sale Friday, but the launch has been met with questions about value after independent battery tests undercut the company's claims of record endurance and repair costs climbed higher than previous models.

Battery Tests Tell a Mixed Story

Apple touted the iPhone 18 Pro Max as offering the "longest battery life in an iPhone," with up to 45 hours of video playback and the smaller Pro rated for up to 36 hours. But real-world testing has painted a more complicated picture.macrumors

Tech blogger Dave2D found that in a demanding Genshin Impact gaming test at 600-nit brightness, the iPhone 18 Pro actually ran out of battery 11 minutes faster than last year's iPhone 17 Pro. The Pro Max fared slightly better, gaining just 23 minutes over its predecessor in the same test. The improvements were more visible under lighter workloads — the Pro Max lasted 17 hours and 19 minutes scrolling Reddit, compared with 15 hours and 36 minutes for the iPhone 17 Pro Max.newsukraine.rbc

Tom's Guide's lab testing showed the iPhone 18 Pro averaging 16 hours and 17 minutes of battery life, a 56-minute or roughly 6% improvement over the iPhone 17 Pro. According to leaked specifications, the iPhone 18 Pro's battery capacity increased by only 36 mAh over its predecessor, leaving the heavy lifting to the new 2nm A20 Pro chipset.tomsguide+1

Repair Costs Rise Again

Adding to buyer frustration, Apple quietly raised its out-of-warranty battery replacement fee for the iPhone 18 Pro models to $129, up $10 from the $119 charged for the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro, as first reported by MacRumors. The increase applies to both the Pro and Pro Max. AppleCare+ subscribers can still get a free replacement if battery health drops below 80%.9to5mac+1

Sticker Shock Extends Beyond the Flagship

The pricing pressure goes beyond the new phones themselves. In the UK, Apple raised the price of four older iPhone models by £100 each on September 9 without any hardware changes, according to analysis by Uswitch, the comparison service. The iPhone 16, which launched at £799 in 2024 and was cut to £699 last year, returned to its original launch price.pressreleasehub.pa

Uswitch attributed the increases to surging memory chip costs driven by AI data center demand, noting that J.P. Morgan JPMorgan Chase & Co. ↗ 0.10% estimates DRAM prices will have risen more than 400% between early 2024 and the end of 2026. A refurbished iPhone 16 can be found for £492.48 — £306 less than Apple's new asking price.pressreleasehub.pa

A survey of 2,000 UK adults conducted by Opinium found that price remains the top factor when choosing a phone at 58%, followed by battery life at 48%, while AI features ranked last at just 4%.pressreleasehub.pa