- Ookla tested the Wi-Fi performance of several flagship phones
- The iPhone 17 range performed particularly well
- That’s largely thanks to its new N1 Wi-Fi chip, says Ookla
Before Apple moved its best iPhones to its all-new in-house N1 wireless chip, the benefits weren’t entirely clear and you would have been forgiven for being apprehensive about the move. According to a new study by networking specialist Ookla, these fears appear to be unfounded, and that’s great news for iPhone fans.
Ookla’s report states that the N1 chip offers “hardware improvements in performance over its predecessors, putting it ahead of many flagship Android devices when it comes to Wi-Fi.” It came to this conclusion by measuring its own “global and collaborative Speedtest Intelligence data from the six weeks since the iPhone 17 family of devices arrived in stores.”
The results speak for themselves. Compared to the iPhone 16 series (equipped with Wi-Fi chips made by Broadcom), the iPhone 17 series with the N1 chip offers up to 40% faster download and upload speeds. If Wi-Fi speed is a priority consideration for you when upgrading your phone, that alone could be a deal breaker.
The N1 chip offered other generational improvements. Comparing the 10th percentile – that is, the lowest 10% of all results – between the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 lines, the latter saw impressive progress. In Ookla’s words, this implies that “Apple’s custom silicon raises the floor more than the ceiling” and should guarantee you better base speeds in many scenarios. In particularly difficult Wi-Fi situations, the N1’s 10th percentile speeds were up to 60% faster than the iPhone 16 line.
Climb to the top
The results are interesting because, on paper, the N1 chip doesn’t offer a huge spec advantage over the Wi-Fi chip in the iPhone 16 line. Both feature Wi-Fi 7 and Apple’s second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, and while the N1 uses Bluetooth 6 rather than its predecessor’s Bluetooth 5.3, the difference may not be obvious. This might have led some people to assume that Apple’s latest iPhones wouldn’t offer much in the way of Wi-Fi upgrades and might struggle to compete with many of the best Android phones.
However, Ookla does not believe this to be the case. Compared to the Android market, the iPhone’s N1 chip performed exceptionally well, achieving the highest 10th percentile score with a speed of 56.08 Mbps, suggesting it’s a worthwhile option if you know your Wi-Fi will be spotty.
On paper, the N1 may seem hampered by its channel width, capped at 160 MHz compared to 320 MHz for some Android devices. But Ookla says this “doesn’t noticeably affect real-world performance for most people,” probably because few people currently use 320MHz-compatible routers.
In terms of numbers, the iPhone 17 line achieved the highest median download speeds in North America, with a score of 416.14 Mbps, putting it slightly ahead of the Google Pixel 10 Pro’s 411.21 Mbps.
Globally, however, the Pixel 10 Pro takes the lead, achieving median download speeds of 335.33 Mbps compared to 329.56 Mbps for the iPhone 17 line. When it came to download speeds, the Xiaomi 15T Pro was the clear winner, with a global median download speed of 129.22 Mbps, comfortably beating the iPhone 17’s 103.26 Mbps and the 94.58 Mbps of the Pixel 10 Pro.
It’s clear, however, that the iPhone’s N1 chip is no slouch. If you’ve been put off by concerns about the iPhone 17 lineup’s Wi-Fi performance now that it’s based on a new Wi-Fi chip, don’t worry. It looks like it offers a serious upgrade over the iPhone 16 and has climbed near the top of the pack compared to the Android competition. Not bad for a first outing.
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