Exclusive: Qualcomm's iPhone X Still Outpaces Intel's

Qualcomm-powered iPhone X models get consistently better LTE speeds than Intel's on America's well-nigh common LTE band, according to new test results from Cellular Insights.

While Apple's iPhone 4s through 6s units all used modems from Qualcomm, last year the company decided to split its business between Qualcomm and Intel, resulting in two iPhone 7 units with very unlike LTE performance. Since so, Apple has become Intel'south largest smartphone modem customer by far. This twelvemonth, Apple doubled downward, continuing the Qualcomm-Intel split.

In that location are three iPhone X models sold globally. Using lab equipment, Cellular Insights tested two of them: the Qualcomm-powered A1865, sold past Sprint, Verizon, and U.South. Cellular and in Australia, China, and Republic of india; and the Intel-powered A1901, sold past most other global carriers including AT&T and T-Mobile. (The third model, A1902, is only sold in Nihon.) Hither in the US, we anticipate that the SIM-free model sold directly by Apple will be the A1865, equally that's the model that supports all iv United states of america carriers.

For this test, Cellular Insights looked at performance on LTE Band 4, which is used by every major US carrier except Sprint, equally well equally in Canada and parts of Latin America.

Cellular Insights attenuated an LTE bespeak from a strong -85dBm until the modems showed no performance. While both modems started out with 195Mbps of download throughput on a 20MHz carrier, the Qualcomm divergence appeared quickly, as the Intel modem dropped to 169Mbps at -87dBm. The Qualcomm modem took an additional -6dBm of attenuation to get to that speed.

Most consumers will feel the difference in very weak signal conditions, where every dBm of bespeak matters, so we zoomed in on that in the chart below. At very weak signal strength, below -120dBm, the Qualcomm modem got speeds on average 67 percentage faster than the Intel modem. The Intel modem finally died at -129dBm and the Qualcomm modem died at -130dBm, and then we didn't find a lot of difference in when the modems finally gave out.

iPhone X - weak signal

The iPhone viii and 8 Plus have the same division of modems, although we did non exam those models specifically.

Rohde & Schwarz, the global leader in examination and measurement equipment, provided Cellular Insights with the cutting-edge CMWFlexx solution (shown below) consisting of two CMW500 Wideband Communication Tester boxes, CMWC Controller, and R&S TS7124 RF shielded box equipped with four Vivaldi antennas for upward to 4×4 MIMO, ensuring high reproducibility of nearly-field OTA MIMO measurements. The study was done independently by Cellular Insights and shared with PCMag.

Rhode & Schwarz Unit

The ii iPhone 10 units were running iOS 11.ane.2. Cellular Insights' methodology was the same every bit last year'due south, which you can read in its 2022 study.

Compared to terminal year'south tests, while Intel's modem hasn't caught upwardly to Qualcomm's, there'southward a considerably smaller difference betwixt the ii. Below, we've copied the Cellular Insights chart for last yr'south iPhone 7 Plus tests: you tin can come across that the Intel iPhone vii Plus modem drops off a cliff between -105 and -110dBm, while it tracks a little below the Qualcomm modem's performance much more closely this year. This year's Intel modem is also able to clasp out some performance at -129dBm, as opposed to the -125dBm of last year's device.

iPhone 7 Speed Chart

Nosotros wonder if Apple is specifically tuning the phones to have similar performance, though, because of the difference between 2022 and 2022 Qualcomm results. While the tiptop and weak-signal performance of this year'due south Qualcomm modem were both better than final yr'southward, the speeds Cellular Insights saw on Qualcomm's modem between -97 and -117dBm were actually lower than concluding year'due south, and much closer to those of this year's Intel modem. Apple may be trying to make sure that T-Mobile and AT&T don't become jealous of Sprint and Verizon.

Crippled Features

Both the Qualcomm and Intel iPhones employ the companies' latest retail modems equally of September 2022. The Qualcomm model uses the X16, which is too in the Samsung Galaxy S8, LG V30, Google Pixel 2, Essential PH-i and other flagship phones. The Intel model uses the Intel XMM7480.

The Qualcomm X16 modem in the iPhone Ten supports 4x4 MIMO antennas, iv-way carrier assemblage, and LAA, all of which tin can exist bundled together in various means to make "gigabit LTE" networks. All four US carriers currently say they're doing gigabit LTE using 4x4 MIMO and three-way carrier assemblage.

However, those features are disabled in the new iPhones, possibly because the Intel modem doesn't support 4x4 MIMO or LAA, and Apple tree wants a level playing field. That makes both models of the iPhone X "600Mbps" rather than "gigabit" phones. There's ane exception: in Commonwealth of australia, the Qualcomm modem is capable of 80MHz, four-manner carrier aggregation on bands 1+3+7+seven, and thus "800Mbps" speeds. A like iv-way combination (ii+4+vii+7) could accept benefitted Canadian carriers where they have 75MHz of spectrum deployed, simply the iPhone does not support that band combination.

The iPhone 8/X modems go a maximum of 200Mbps per 20MHz channel, as opposed to 150Mbps on the iPhone seven models. The iPhone 8/Ten modems are able to cyberspace higher speeds using the same 20MHz channels because of their support for 256QAM encoding, which packs more than information into each transmission symbol. The iPhone 7'due south Qualcomm X12 modem supported 256QAM, simply Apple tree left it turned off, possibly considering Intel'south XMM7360 didn't accept 256QAM back up. The XMM7480 does, so Apple is turning the X16'southward 256QAM back up on.

The End of Qualcomm?

The iPhone Ten may be Qualcomm's last hurrah with Apple, though. Qualcomm and Apple are locked in a web of lawsuits basically centering on Apple tree non wanting to pay the license fees that Qualcomm wants to charge.

Until now, Apple has been stuck with Qualcomm modems because it's the merely provider offering loftier-end modems that work on the Sprint and Verizon CDMA networks. Intel's XMM7560 modem, which is supposedly coming to market next year, will back up CDMA and thus Apple won't take whatever demand for Qualcomm.

Further downwards the road, Apple tree may cast off Intel besides. The company recently hired a Qualcomm executive and is rumored to be working on a project to develop its own modems, which might consequence in a product in 2022 or 2022.

For now, though, getting an iPhone with the Qualcomm modem is yet the way to go if you want the all-time possible LTE performance. You tin do that past purchasing the factory-unlocked, SIM-free model directly from Apple in the US or Commonwealth of australia, or by purchasing a Verizon Wireless or Sprint unit. Sprint units come locked to Dart, but Verizon units are unlocked.