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Driven by PCMag in partnership with Cellular Insights, the evaluation compared the iPhone XS and XS Max to some of the top-performing competitors in the industry, including Samsung's Galaxy Note 9 and Google's Pixel 2.
For 2018, Apple has chosen to abandon Qualcomm in favor of Intel's next generation XMM7560, an LTE modem capable of communicating with networks managed by the four major mobile operators in the United States. The latest iPhones are also the first to equip 4×4 MIMO antennas, increasing speed and optimizing performance in areas where cellular signals are weak.
The tests consisted of creating a 20 MHz band 4 channel, used by AT & T, T-Mobile, Verizon and major Canadian operators, with Rohde & Schwarz equipment capable of supporting 4×4 MIMO configurations. Cellular Insights attenuated an LTE signal of -85 dBm, a powerful signal and a reference power gradually reduced until the phones stopped downloading data.
Overall, the performance of the iPhone XS Max is almost equivalent to that of the Galaxy Note 9 and Pixel 2, both equipped with Qualcomm modems on the X20 and X16 models, respectively. At -85 dBm, the three smartphones reached a download speed of nearly 400 Mbps. XS performance dropped sharply to -86dBm, while Pixel 2 and Note 9 recorded nearly identical declines at -89 dBm and -90 dBm, respectively.
Apple's phone has stopped receiving data at -128 dBm, while Note 9 has stopped receiving at around -131 dBm. Interestingly, the Pixel 2's X16 modem continued to operate beyond the measured range, although performance deteriorated to about 10 Mbps.
As can be expected from two almost identical smartphones, the Apple XS and XS Max systems display broadly similar performances. The larger iPhone XS Max has taken some signal levels up front, but the slight deviation would not go unnoticed in a real-world scenario, the publication announced.
The latest Apple iPhone, although slightly behind its competitors using Qualcomm modems, is significantly improved over its predecessor. Lab tests have allowed the iPhone XS Max to easily outperform the iPhone X at all signal levels, thus doubling the iPhone in good conditions. The gains are mainly attributable to MIMO 4×4 antennas, although the careful tuning of the new Intel XMM chip apparently helped the iPhone XS Max operate with relatively weak signals.
Real-world tests yielded similar results: iPhone XS Max recorded an average 6.6 Mb / s upload speed increase across all US carriers, according to statistics provided by the speed test specialist Ookla. AT & T has been the most improved with an increase of 8 Mbps in performance. In Canada, the total average download delta jumped to 20.2 Mbps, with Telus the network that benefited the most from Apple's changes this year.
Comparatively, Samsung's Note 9 had average LTE download speeds of 43.2 Mbps during the week of September 24, while speeds for the iPhone reached 38.9 Mbps for the same period. Again, download figures have improved dramatically in Canada, where the average Note 9 speed was 97.7 Mbps to 85.4 Mbps of XS Max, according to the study.
Finally, the publication notes a decline in the performance of the iPhone X when upgrading from iOS 11 to iOS 12. Notably, the download speeds on an iPhone X running iOS 12 are approaching performance levels seen by Qualcomm versions of the device running iOS 11.
The test results come about a week after the first customers of the iPhone XS and XS Max began complaining of poor cell and Wi-Fi reception. hui – laboratory tests in particular –
suggest that Apple's hardware is not to blame, leaving hope that a firmware update will correct the sporadic problem.
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