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

A new report suggests that 5G performance on the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro lineups lag many of their Android-based competitors.

Although the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro models saw a 2.3 times increase in speeds compared to their 4G iPhone counterparts, Apple's latest smartphones ranked lower than at least 25 Android models in the OpenSignal speed report.

Credit: OpenSignal

Samsung accounted for at least 60% of the top 25 fastest smartphones in the report, which ranked devices based on average 5G or 4G download speeds. Apple devices didn't break the top 25, OpenSignal says.

The Samsung Galaxy S21 5G took the top spot with an average speed of 56 Mbps. Next up were the TCL Revvl 5G and the OnePlus 8T+, with speeds of 49.8 Mbps and 49.3 Mbps, respectively. In 25th place was the LG Velvet 5G with 37.9 Mbps.

Credit: OpenSignal

The iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max clocked in slower with speeds of 36.9 Mbps and 36.2 Mbps, OpenSignal claims. The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini had speeds of 29.6 Mbps and 32.9 Mbps, respectively.

OpenSignal does add that Apple devices did see a bigger jump in speeds with the 5G upgrade, though it attributes that to the fact that previous devices were using slower Intel modems rather than Qualcomm units.

The company also tracked a 36% speed increase when comparing current 5G-equipped iPhone 12 models with cellular iPad Pro devices. That, OpenSignal adds, suggests that future iPad Pro users could see a significant speed bump when 5G-equipped models debut.

As for why Apple's 2021 devices are lagging behind in terms of download speeds, OpenSignal's Ian Fogg told 9to5Mac that it may have to do with RF design. The iPhone 12 is Apple's first 5G device, while Samsung is currently on its third generation of 5G-equipped handsets.

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21 Comments

mobird 20 Years · 758 comments

About 3 years ago

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?

fastasleep 14 Years · 6451 comments

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!

mknelson 9 Years · 1148 comments

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.

flydog 14 Years · 1141 comments

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.

FoodLover 4 Years · 48 comments

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.