A new report from OpenSignal paints a rough picture of how 5G’s performance on the iPhone 12 lineup compares to Android smartphones in the United States. The majority of the 25 fastest 5G smartphones ended up being made by Samsung, and while the iPhone 12 saw a 2.3-fold increase in 5G speeds over the speeds of its iPhone 4G, the first 5G iPhones from Apple placed at the bottom of the pack and behind at least 25 Android smartphones for overall download speed.
OpenSignal today shared the new US 5G performance report by smartphone model, with Samsung’s new Galaxy S21 5G taking the top spot with an average 5G / 4G download speed of 56 Mbps.
One of the main takeaways was that Samsung made up 60% of the top 25 5G users.
TCL’s Revvl 5G and OnePlus 8T + took second and third place respectively with averages of 49.8 and 49.3 Mbps. LG’s Velvet 5G came in 25th with 37.8 Mbps.
Where is the iPhone 12 in all of this? Undoubtedly disappointing for iPhone 12 owners, Apple’s first 5G-capable smartphones fell behind their Android rivals in overall average speeds.
The iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max had average download speeds of 36.9 and 36.2 Mbps with the iPhone 12 and 12 mini at 29.6 and 32.9 Mbps, respectively.
OpenSignal notes that, given that previous iPhones were behind Android in 4G speeds with Intel instead of Qualcomm modems, the iPhone 12 brought a 2.3x increase in 5G speeds over 4G. in the United States than competitors like Samsung, OnePlus, etc. switch to 5G.
The graph below shows how Apple has managed to close the 5G performance gap with Qualcomm modems, but it still lags behind all of the Android competitors.
Given that the iPhone 12 line uses Qualcomm 5G modems like Android devices and even including mmWave in all models, we were curious as to why it appears the iPhone is lagging behind and contacted OpenSignal.
Ian Fogg, who wrote this report and leads the OpenSignal analytics team, said Samsung and other Android makers might get ahead of Apple when it comes to RF design because components of smartphones beyond the modem influence the performance of 5G / 4G. For example, Samsung’s Galaxy S21 is its third generation of 5G smartphones, while the iPhone 12 line is Apple’s first. So Apple may have some work to do to catch up with the front-end RF design.
Finally, the report points out that when 5G arrives on iPad, it should make a big difference for users:
Today, we’re seeing average download speeds on 5G iPhone Pro models that are on average 36% faster than speeds on newer cellular iPad Pro models. With a new 5G-enabled SoC, future iPad Pro users should see speeds at least as fast as iPhone 12 users.
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