When picking a mobile phone, if the most important factor is cellular speed, then there’s really one choice in the U.S. and U.K.: it’s Apple all the way. That’s according to a report by Ookla, a company specializing in network diagnostics and the makers of the popular Speedtest benchmark.
Ookla tested the 5G performance of different mobile phones in the 10 countries with the highest number of connected devices, and in the U.S and U.K. the iPhone 14 Pro Max came out on top. It posted a median download speed of 177.21Mbps in the U.S. and 171.24Mbps in the U.K. The iPhone 14 Pro wasn’t far behind its bigger sibling, with a median download speed of 175.08 in the U.S., and 158.24 in the U.K.
Remarkably in the U.K., the top five 5G phones are all iPhones. The iPhone 13 Pro Max slipped into second place in Ookla’s testing between the 14 Pro Max and the 14 Pro with a 165.49Mbps score. The iPhone 13 mini and the iPhone 13 Pro round out the top five list in the U.K.
In the U.S., the iPhones at the top are followed by Android phones by Samsung. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4, which finished third, was 8 percent behind the iPhone 14 Pro Max in the top spot. The iPhone 14 uses the same Snapdragon X65 5G as most premium Android phones and will likely stick with Qualcomm for at least another year. However, there are persistent rumors that Apple is working on its own 5G modem that could be ready in 2024.
Ookla used its Speedtest Intelligence metrics to gauge the 5G performance of phones that had a “market share of greater than or equal to 0.5% of all devices and a minimum sample size of 100 devices in a given market.” Testing was done with the available 5G providers in each country, and Ookla points out that performance can vary from country to country.
