- The 5G modem of the iPhone 16th has outperformed the iPhone 16 in some tests
- His lack of mmwave support could be the only thing that holds him
- This augurs well for future iPhones and future versions of this modem
An interesting aspect of the iPhone 16th is that it uses Apple’s Modem C1. This is Apple’s first internal 5g modem, and so far, the iPhone 16th is the only device in which you will find it.
The fact that it is a cheaper phone than the rest of the iPhone 16 series, you might expect the C1 to follow the Qualcomm modem used in them, but in fact, the tests suggest that the C1 could offer better performance in most situations.
Ookla (via 9TO5MAC) has collected data from iPhone 16 users and iPhone 16th in the United States and found that the iPhone 16th offers 10th Center download speeds of 27.35 Mbps, against 16.66 Mbps on the iPhone 16. It is essentially the speeds to which users undergoing the lowest performance of one or the other of the phones can expect.
For median download speeds, the iPhone 16th also comes out in the lead, at 217.64 Mbps compared to 210.55 Mbps on the iPhone 16. However, at the top of the iPhone 16 takes the victory, with 90th Center download speeds of 756.13 Mbps, against 560.4 Mbps on the iPhone 16th.
Although these upper speeds can be biased by the fact that the iPhone 16th does not support MMWAVE 5G, while chokela suspects that future versions of Modem C1 will support this.
Just as good for downloads
The iPhone 16th and its Modem C1 are just as impressive when looking at the median download speeds, making the iPhone 16 beat comfortably on the three tested operators (T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T).
Everything is good news for Apple, because it suggests that the company could move on to its internal modem on all new iPhones without sacrificing speeds, and it is all the more impressive that Apple claims that C1 is also more efficient than other iPhone modems, which means that it should not have an impact on the life of the battery.
This places the iPhone 16th in the unusual position to have an advantage on the best Apple models – apart from its lack of MMWAVE support – but this is one more reason to buy this phone, and look to the future, it is a promising sign for future iPhones, especially since the next generation of this modem could be even better.
