A month after the iPhone 15 lineup launched we saw the Pro models come out on top as the fastest smartphones for mobile download speeds. Now after measuring Q4 data, Ookla has shared that the iPhone 15 Pro Max remains the king of cellular speed. Here’s how much iPhone 15 Pro Max is ahead of the top Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel smartphones.
Ookla shared its latest mobile performance report comparing the major US carriers for download and upload speeds, consistency, availability, and more today.
Included in that, the report shows how the most popular smartphones in the US stacked up in Q4 2023 for download/upload speed and latency.
In fall 2022, iPhone 14 Pro Max earned the crown but then lost the title for the fastest cellular speeds in Q4 as well as Q1 2023.
Notably, in Q2 2023, Ookla’s test saw the average iPhone 14 Pro Max download speed drop to 127.83 Mbps. At the time, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra earned the top spot with a 161.86 Mbps median download speed.
Fastest smartphones by download speed Q4 2023
Today the latest study from Ookla is in and the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max have held their ground against Samsung and Google smartphones.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max beat all the other devices on the list with a median download speed of 213.84 Mbps. Meanwhile, the iPhone 15 Pro had a median download speed of 189.33 Mbps.
iPhone 15 Pro Max also led with the fastest median upload speeds of 14.70 Mbps.
But even with Apple having the top two fastest smartphones, Samsung was able to beat out Apple to have a higher median mobile speed overall at 113.74 Mbps.
9to5Mac’s take
As I mentioned in Ookla’s last report, the initial median download speeds for a given smartphone start highest at launch and decrease over time as more customers buy it.
That’s probably most attributable to the fact that those more likely to buy the latest high-end iPhone (or any smartphone) are most likely to have better mobile connections.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max saw a median download speed of 251.37 Mbps just after launch and this new report saw it dip to 213.84 Mbps. But all-in-all, that’s an impressive gain as the iPhone 14 Pro Max settled at a median of 127.83 Mbps in Q2 of 2023.
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