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Apple's iPhones Trail Samsung, Google Devices in Internet Speeds (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple's iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and $1,000 iPhone X trail the latest smartphones from Samsung Electronics and Alphabet's Google in download speeds, according to data from Ookla, a company that provides the most popular online service for measuring the speed of an internet connection with its Speedtest app and website. Faster internet data means that users can load websites and start watching movies more quickly, make crisper video calls and get higher-quality video.
[...] Ookla's data are important because they are created by users -- not in a corporate lab -- and encompass the range of random real-world conditions that affect performance like distance from cellular towers and network congestion. Ookla said it hosts millions of tests a day and has done 20 billion in total.
[...] The speed-test data, reviewed by Bloomberg, show that Samsung's Galaxy S9 phones had an average download speed -- across carriers in the U.S. -- of 38.9 megabits per second, based on about 102,000 tests over the past three months. The larger model, the S9+, delivered speeds of 38.4 Mbps, according to a sample size of about 169,000 phone connections. The iPhone X on average downloaded data at 29.7 Mbps, based on a 603,000 tests. The iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone 8 were close behind with speeds of 29.4 Mbps and 28.6 Mbps, respectively.
[...] Ookla's data are important because they are created by users -- not in a corporate lab -- and encompass the range of random real-world conditions that affect performance like distance from cellular towers and network congestion. Ookla said it hosts millions of tests a day and has done 20 billion in total.
[...] The speed-test data, reviewed by Bloomberg, show that Samsung's Galaxy S9 phones had an average download speed -- across carriers in the U.S. -- of 38.9 megabits per second, based on about 102,000 tests over the past three months. The larger model, the S9+, delivered speeds of 38.4 Mbps, according to a sample size of about 169,000 phone connections. The iPhone X on average downloaded data at 29.7 Mbps, based on a 603,000 tests. The iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone 8 were close behind with speeds of 29.4 Mbps and 28.6 Mbps, respectively.
...Does anyone actually buy phones based on their max LTE download speed? Most of us have quotas and are trying as hard as possible not to burn through them. I've got a 6GB plan, which is big for Canada (I know how sad it is in comparison to Europe's download caps, don't @ me) so I spend a lot of time making sure I do my downloads over wifi, and even then, LTE on my iPhone 7 is usually faster than whatever burdened wifi network I'm on.
I mean, definitely Intel's modems aren't as good, but I'd be really interested to see how many people rate this as a first-tier, dealbreaker feature. Honestly, if this is you, please speak up, I'm honestly curious as to what you're doing on your phone.
Did you read all the numbers? The only 0.3 mbps difference in the summary is between different kinds of iPhones, while Android phones are getting roughly 10 mbps more.
That said, who cares when data plans are capped and it's a constant struggle to not max out. What kind of movie can you watch that requires more than 30 mbps and is short enough that there'll be data left on your plan when it's done?
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The majority of people go to speedtest for two reasons.
1) The internet is being slow, and Ookla is seen as an uninvolved 3rd party.
2) They bought something new and want to see how fast it's going.
I would expect that a small sample of a new product will average higher speeds than the total collected data of older products, even if there is no change in the hardware's capabilities.
Also, the last time I cared, iStuff only had one carrier, while Androids were avaiable with every carrier. If that is still the case, this could just be averaging a 30Mbps carrier that has exclusive deals with Apple alongside 40Mbps carriers that do not carry iPhones.
I have the iPhone X, and I stopped using the Ookla app months ago after I discovered that it was giving me incorrectly slow results. When I use the dslreports speed test, I consistently get the speeds I expect to see on any given wifi network; however, the Ookla app shows a much slower speed (consistently) on those same networks. When running these speed tests over cellular, I observe the same issue. This observation led me to conclude that the software was no longer useful, and possibly had gone unmaintained. However, if theyâ(TM)re advertising this data as factual, it leads me to believe they may be doing this as an anti Apple campaign. This makes me wonder if Samsung (or another company) has paid them under the table to do this.