Does anyone have a full comparison of the best Apple modem compared to the best Android modem yet?
Peak 5G download throughput Peak 5G upload throughput Sustained download throughput Sustained upload throughput Download throughput at weak signal Upload throughput at weak signal LTE download throughput LTE upload throughput
5G-to-LTE fallback performance
5G-to-LTE transition latency Network acquisition time Time to reconnect after signal loss Latency / ping Latency under load (bufferbloat) Jitter Packet loss Cell-edge throughput Signal sensitivity / minimum usable RSRP SINR performance Performance at low SINR Throughput vs. distance from cell Performance while moving Handover success rate Handover interruption time Carrier aggregation capability Number of aggregated component carriers Maximum aggregated bandwidth
4x4 MIMO performance MIMO efficiency under weak signal Sub-6 GHz band coverage mmWave band coverage mmWave throughput mmWave range mmWave reconnection behavior SA 5G performance NSA 5G performance VoNR performance VoLTE performance Voice-call drop rate Voice quality / MOS Dual-SIM performance DSDS/DSDA behavior Roaming performance International band compatibility Carrier compatibility Power consumption during download Power consumption during upload Energy per GB downloaded Energy per GB uploaded Idle cellular power consumption Power consumption at weak signal Thermal behavior under sustained cellular load Sustained performance before throttling Modem/RF temperature RF transmit power Receive sensitivity Antenna efficiency Uplink transmit performance Uplink reliability at cell edge SAR-limited performance Performance with the phone held in different orientations Performance when partially obstructing antennas Interference rejection Adjacent-channel interference performance Coexistence with Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/GNSS GNSS coexistence/interference Cellular performance in congested cells Performance across different carriers/bands Firmware stability Crash/reset rate Connection-drop frequency
This is an offshoot of a recent thread on the Apple newsgroup about the new phones being unable to connect on the AT&T network due to lack of QA tests.
From: Chris snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com Newsgroups: misc.phone.mobile.iphone,comp.sys.mac.advocacy Subject: Re: iPhone 18 Pro Max users are unable to connect to the AT&T network Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2026 09:14:31 -0000 (UTC) Message-ID: <119qh1n$2sfqf$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me
What's funny is that the Pro Max (in the US) is the only model with the
> Qualcomm modem. Which means the Apple designed C2 (in the 18 Pro and non-US
> Pro Max) is better quality. For a company that has "no idea how to design
> anything" that's quite an achievement. Lol.
Hi Chris,
My main point was that the Apple religious zealots think Apple QA is so great, and yet, the record shows Apple's QA sucks as much as anyone's QA.
Apple doesn't really even do much QA, which we've proved by Google's project zero proving a huge portion of iOS code was *never* tested.
The facts small children find extensive holes in Facetime, for example, proved Apple never tested Facetime, and the internal emails proved it.
My only point to make is Apple's QA is atrocious. But Apple's MARKETING is brilliant.
Now, let's take your statement to heart though, as the trolls are always defending Apple to the death no matter what, with the first absurd argument that pops up into their brains...
You said: What's funny is that the Pro Max (in the US) is the only model with the Qualcomm modem. Which means the Apple designed C2 (in the 18 Pro & non-US Pro Max) is better quality. For a company that has "no idea how to design anything" that's quite an achievement. Lol.
I'd be cautious about accepting the premise that the C2 is simply "better quality" without specifying what metric, whether that's time-to-market, reception, power consumption, throughput, reliability, thermal behavior, etc.,
Do we have that comparison? a. Apple's best modem b. Compared to Qualcomm's best modem
Since I feel Apple has always been only a MARKETING company (much like coca cola is), I never bothered to make a performance comparison with Qualcomm.
Did you? If so, that would be very useful information to compare modem performance.