The iPhone 18 Professional and 18 Professional Max went on sale this week in Germany, together with 64 different nations within the first wave. When you have your eyes set on an iPhone Duo, you’ll have to anticipate over a month extra to get it.
As for the brand new Professional fashions, here’s a reminder of their costs – the small iPhone 18 Professional begins at €1,450, whereas the bigger iPhone 18 Professional Max begins at €1,600. As is custom, Apple stopped promoting the outdated Professionals when the brand new ones had been unveiled – solely non-Professional fashions final greater than a yr on Apple.com. However that doesn’t cease third-party retailers from promoting older Professionals as you’ll see under.
The iPhone 17 Professional launched at €1,300 for a 256GB unit final yr, now you possibly can have it for much less. That mentioned, there are causes to pay the additional premium for the brand new 18 Professional fashions. For instance, the brand new mannequin brings Apple’s first 2nm chipset – the A20 Professional is a beast – and it has a smaller punch gap for the FaceTime digital camera and Face ID system. There’s additionally a variable aperture and quicker charging (50% in quarter-hour as an alternative of 20 minutes).
The iPhone 17 Professional Max was €1,450 final yr (for a 256GB unit). Now it is not low-cost, however it’s cheaper. What do you lose by going with the year-old mannequin? We already talked about the chipset and cameras and there is extra. The iPhone 18 Professional Max is the fastest-charging iPhone but and it could possibly attain 50% cost in simply quarter-hour, in comparison with the 17 Professional Max, which wants 20 minutes.
The iPhone 17 and iPhone Air are nonetheless out there on Apple.com. After the value hike, they value €1,100 and €1,300, respectively, for the bottom 256GB fashions. That is €150 and €200 greater than what they value at launch! No less than that’s what Apple is asking for them, their costs are far more affordable on Amazon.
In the meantime, the Samsung Galaxy S26 is €370 off. It’s thinner (7.2mm vs. 8.8mm) and lighter (167g vs. 211g) than the iPhone 18 Professional, whereas having a small battery benefit – 4,300mAh vs. 4,056mAh (for an eSIM iPhone model). These 10MP 3x/67mm telephoto and 12MP ultra-wide cameras are fairly outdated, nevertheless, particularly when in comparison with the 48MP 4x/100mm and 48MP modules on the iPhone 18 Professional. And no, Samsung nonetheless doesn’t do magnetic charging.
The Samsung Galaxy S26+ and S26 Extremely are each €450 off. We’re leaning in the direction of the Extremely, regardless that the S26+ is fairly low-cost for a 512GB unit. The Extremely is better-equipped to go face to face with the iPhone Professionals in a digital camera shootout – it has a 200MP most important (1/1.3”), a 50MP 5x/111mm periscope (and that very same 10MP 3x/67mm tele), plus a 50MP ultra-wide. It additionally has a 6.9” Privateness Show with an S Pen. And it’s the solely Galaxy to help 60W wired and 25W wi-fi charging.
The Xiaomi 17T and 17T Professional are working modest reductions for the time being. The vanilla 17T is smaller with a 6.59” display and a 6,500mAh battery (67W wired charging). It’s powered by the Dimensity 8500 Extremely. It has a 50MP most important digital camera (1/1.55”), 50MP 5x/115mm periscope and a 12MP ultra-wide.
The Xiaomi 17T Professional is bigger with a 6.83” display and a 7,000mAh battery (100W wired, 50W wi-fi charging). It makes use of the flagship Dimensity 9500 chipset. Its 50MP most important digital camera has a bigger sensor (1/1.31”), whereas the 50MP 5x periscope and 12MP ultra-wide are the identical.
Our ballot this week might be concerning the Redmi Observe 17 Professional and 17 Professional Max. We have now a sneaking suspicion folks won’t approve of their MSRPs. Fortunately, you don’t should pay anyplace near that – the 17 Professional is €200 off and the 17 Professional Max is €150 off. Additionally, you probably have an energetic Prime Scholar subscription, you will get a 15% low cost.
Each fashions are fairly gentle on RAM, as you possibly can see. They use Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 and Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 chipsets, respectively, which aren’t wonderful both. And this technology dropped the 200MP cameras of the Observe 15 Professional fashions. No less than you get massive batteries – 8,340mAh (67W) and 9,210mAh (100W).
Then there are the Redmi 17 and Redmi Observe 17. Each are large with 6.9” and 6.99” shows, however the Redmi 17 has a 720p+ IPS LCD, whereas the Observe 17 has a 1080p+ OLED. Battery capability on each is basically the identical, 7,500mAh vs. 7,700mAh with 45W charging. Funnily sufficient, the Redmi 17 has the higher chipset – properly, “higher” is relative as it’s a Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 vs. Snapdragon 4 Gen 4. Nonetheless, since they’re on the identical value proper now, we’d advocate the Redmi Observe 17, until you actually, actually favor LCD over OLED. By the best way, the Observe 17 additionally has that 15% low cost for Prime Scholar subscribers.
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