5G on the iPhone is finally here and that means it's time to see what the most popular smart phone with the latest network tech is capable of. Over the past few months we have seen several 5G speed tests pass through the SpeedSmart app. Now that the 5G iPhone is officially here we can share some of what we have seen so far on Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.

While there have not been a ton of tests with the new iPhone, yet we do have some results for the 3 carrier networks in the US. Keep in mind these are early tests and a small number of tests in just a few locations across the country. T-Mobile and Verizon had the most activity, AT&T had a small handful of tests, and they seem to be using only Low Band 5G. Every Verizon test is using millimeter wave for crazy fast results. T-Mobile seems to be a mix of low and mid-band 5G. Let's see the test results...

The results for Verizon are incredibly fast, but something most people will not see anytime soon due to millimeter wave being so limited in coverage and availability. We personally look forward to seeing results and testing Verizon's nationwide 5G network that was launched today. AT&T and T-Mobile are mixed, while showing nice fast download speeds for AT&T it's not incredibly faster than 4G LTE T-Mobile when with Low Band 5G is the same result. The sweet spot for most will be Mid Band 5G. As you can see T-Mobile with download speeds in excess of 400 Mbps using Mid Band 5G is very impressive, most people should end up with results like this if they are in an area with mid-band 5G deployed, otherwise most will notice very little to no difference when going to 5G.

With the release of the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max last month came a new Gigabit modem and antenna design that is capable of delivering significantly faster download and upload speed to your iPhone. Putting the new iPhone right inline with the latest Android hardware networking wise. After a few weeks of gathering results using the SpeedSmart Speed Test App we now have a good idea of how the new iPhone performs in the real world across all 4 carriers in the US. Thanks to 4×4 MIMO and some other additions we are seeing double digit percent increase for everyone living in a location with towers capable of taking advantage of the new hardware vs. older modem iPhone.

Nationwide as you can see from the chart above all 4 major networks in the US are seeing significant gains in average speed. We expect this to only get better in the coming months as the network for all 4 carriers is continued to be upgraded across the country. Right now on average using the iPhone XS users are seeing 29.48% faster download speeds when averaged across all networks.

Looking at specific cities across the US the difference is even greater. We have created charts for 3 major locations with more to follow at a later date. Charts for Miami, FL, San Francisco, CA and New York City are below. Looking at these 3 locations the gains in performance across all networks is significant and each operator should be very happy. T–Mobile users in Miami, FL are seeing speed of almost 80 Mbps or almost double what users are getting on a iPhone X during the same time period. In New York City Verizon users are seeing a 33% increase in download speed on average and in San Francisco many AT&T users are seeing an almost 50% increase in download speed.

We fully expect this trend to continue and only get better overtime and in more locations across the county. We will do an update post in a few weeks with more cities.

Ever since the iPhone 7 was launched over a year ago I often get asked “Which iPhone is faster, the one with the Intel modem or Qualcomm modem?”

With the launch of the iPhone 8 I was asked this question again and then many more times with the release of the iPhone X a little over 1 week ago. I decided to look into it and find out. With 10 days of speed test taken on the iPhone X I gathered the info needed. Tho an admittedly small number of speed tests have been taken with the iPhone X compared to other iPhone models, this due mostly to limited supply of iPhone X devices. Purely in terms of Download & Upload speed I think I can answer the question.

All data used was from speed tests taken only with the SpeedSmart iOS app on iPhone X devices, with LTE connections in the US between November 3rd and November 12th.

Below is the raw numbers from the chart above with each networks average ping added.

Qualcomm Modem (Network, Download Mbps, Upload Mbps, Ping ms)

• AT&T — 27.46 Mbps — 9.32 Mbps — 38.50 ms
• T-Mobile — 26.54 Mbps — 8.01 Mbps — 50.05 ms
• Sprint — 20.28 Mbps — 4.06 Mbps — 57.76 ms
• Verizon — 35.18 Mbps — 11.01 Mbps — 53.66 ms

• AT&T — 30.13 Mbps — 9.64 Mbps — 41.84 ms
• T-Mobile — 33.34 Mbps — 11.73 Mbps — 54.23 ms

When it comes to just speed, neither. Neither modem is really faster than the other in the iPhone X and that’s a good thing. While the Qualcomm modem iPhone X on Verizon has the highest avg. Download speed of all 4 networks, the Intel modem T-Mobile iPhone X is not far behind and has a higher avg. Upload speed. Getting an average across both device modems and excluding Sprint because of its slower the network the difference is rather minimal 31.73 Mbps Intel and 29.72 Mbps Qualcomm.

The more interesting point is that the Intel modem iPhone X for both AT&T and T-Mobile performs significantly better. Granted there is a 5:1 test gap between the Intel and Qualcomm iPhone X but a greater than 10% performance gap between for AT&T and 15% for T-Mobile.

We can say that when it comes to just purely speed that there is no reason if your on AT&T or T-Mobile to try to get a Qualcomm modem iPhone X. If anything the Intel modem version might be better for both those networks.

We are going to revisit this in a couple months and see if these numbers change or the trend stays the same as we get more speed tests using both iPhone X models.