iPhone 12 5G speeds lag behind Android rivals, report says

I think 9to5mac said it best-
"Opensignal report claims iPhone 12 is slower than almost every Android phone in 5G/4G speed tests"

This is a little disheartening if you bought the iPhone 12 in any configuration. I wonder how far along in the iPhone 12 development cycle that Apple's and Qualcomm's engineers knew they weren't going to achieve anything close to the potential of the modem from Qualcomm? Can some of this be resolved with firmware or software updates or is this all hardware design (RF) shortcomings? Apple's engineers are some of the best and brightest and RF is nothing new to them. Are the modems themselves that are sourced from Qualcomm basically the same (5G) in iPhone 12 models as those in other phone manufacturers who had better results?

I tethered my MacBook Pro to my 12 Pro the other day as the wifi in my front yard was iffy. Ran speedtest and was getting 245Mb/s down. Crazy! 

mobird said:

I think 9to5mac said it best-
"Opensignal report claims iPhone 12 is slower than almost every Android phone in 5G/4G speed tests"

This is a little disheartening if you bought the iPhone 12 in any configuration. I wonder how far along in the iPhone 12 development cycle that Apple's and Qualcomm's engineers knew they weren't going to achieve anything close to the potential of the modem from Qualcomm? Can some of this be resolved with firmware or software updates or is this all hardware design (RF) shortcomings? Apple's engineers are some of the best and brightest and RF is nothing new to them. Are the modems themselves that are sourced from Qualcomm basically the same (5G) in iPhone 12 models as those in other phone manufacturers who had better results?

Samsung makes network hardware for 5G so that may give them an edge in designing the phone hardware.

mobird said:

I think 9to5mac said it best-
"Opensignal report claims iPhone 12 is slower than almost every Android phone in 5G/4G speed tests"

This is a little disheartening if you bought the iPhone 12 in any configuration. I wonder how far along in the iPhone 12 development cycle that Apple's and Qualcomm's engineers knew they weren't going to achieve anything close to the potential of the modem from Qualcomm? Can some of this be resolved with firmware or software updates or is this all hardware design (RF) shortcomings? Apple's engineers are some of the best and brightest and RF is nothing new to them. Are the modems themselves that are sourced from Qualcomm basically the same (5G) in iPhone 12 models as those in other phone manufacturers who had better results?

Assuming the data in this "report" is accurate (it's not), no human can tell the difference between 44 and 57 Mbps.  It's literally miliseconds of page loading time for a website, and zero difference when streaming video once the video starts.

The problem with this bullshit report is that it is based on tests done by users on their free app. There was no standardized testing conducted (for example, by using all the devices cited in the same area at the same time).  The sample data is made up only of people who selected themselves and performed the tests at different times on different days and at different locations.

flydog said:

mobird said:

I think 9to5mac said it best-
"Opensignal report claims iPhone 12 is slower than almost every Android phone in 5G/4G speed tests"

This is a little disheartening if you bought the iPhone 12 in any configuration. I wonder how far along in the iPhone 12 development cycle that Apple's and Qualcomm's engineers knew they weren't going to achieve anything close to the potential of the modem from Qualcomm? Can some of this be resolved with firmware or software updates or is this all hardware design (RF) shortcomings? Apple's engineers are some of the best and brightest and RF is nothing new to them. Are the modems themselves that are sourced from Qualcomm basically the same (5G) in iPhone 12 models as those in other phone manufacturers who had better results?

Assuming the data in this "report" is accurate (it's not), no human can tell the difference between 44 and 57 Mbps.  It's literally miliseconds of page loading time for a website, and zero difference when streaming video once the video starts.

The problem with this bullshit report is that it is based on tests done by users on their free app. There was no standardized testing conducted (for example, by using all the devices cited in the same area at the same time).  The sample data is made up only of people who selected themselves and performed the tests at different times on different days and at different locations.

I would not question the reports, but I agree that the outcome is simply irrelevant in day-to-day usage for us end users, in particular when considering that these are only average numbers: as Fastasleep mentioned you could also have almost 250 Mb/s on iPhones.