A brand new report reveals Android telephones outfitted with Qualcomm mobile modems outperforming the iPhone 16e with its personal Apple C1 modem. Sadly, the restricted nature of the checks, mixed with the truth that it was commissioned by Qualcomm, means we are able to’t be taught a lot from it.
The checks had been carried out by Mobile Insights, and you may learn the abstract right here or the complete report right here. The overall abstract of the outcomes is that the Android units had obtain speeds round 35 p.c sooner than the iPhone 16e, and add speeds between 81 p.c and 91 p.c sooner.
That the report was paid for by Qualcomm, in fact, makes it suspect, however there are different limitations value noting.
First, the report doesn’t tell us which Android telephones had been examined. It says one is “a 2025 flagship gadget powered by Snapdragon X80 5G Modem-RF System priced at $799” and the opposite is “a 2024 flagship gadget powered by Snapdragon X75 5G Modem-RF System priced at $619.” That narrows it down considerably, however it’s odd that the iPhone 16e is called (the one gadget with an Apple C1 modem in any case) and the Android units are stored considerably secret.
Second, the testing all came about in solely three places in a single small geographical space—the Astoria neighborhood in Queens, New York Metropolis. Even our personal testing, which we famous was fairly restricted, managed to check 5 places across the better Sacramento space. Lastly, the research solely used T-Cell’s business SA 5G community. As with our personal testing, which came about solely on the Verizon community, a single provider (particularly solely in a single neighborhood) captures solely a really restricted expertise.
A extra in depth set of checks comes from Ookla, whose report again in March used knowledge from many customers throughout the nation testing with its fashionable Speedtest app. That report captured the expertise on all three main carriers, and curiously, the hole between the iPhone 16 (utilizing a Qualcomm modem) and the iPhone 16e (with the Apple C1) was widest on, you guessed it, T-Cell’s community.
So this take a look at appears barely suspect. Not solely is it paid for by Qualcomm, however it pits the $599 iPhone 16e towards unnamed Android telephones, in simply three places of a single neighborhood, on the provider during which Qualcomm’s modems simply occur to outperform Apple’s by the widest margin. And it solely checks add and obtain speeds, not different facets resembling stability when shifting inside and between cell areas, latency, or energy utilization. None of this implies the report is fake, however it provides the looks of cherry-picking checks to get the outcomes you need.
In the end, there’s nothing of notice right here. The C1 modem was by no means meant to outperform Qualcomm’s greatest modems, solely to offer a comparable expertise to mid-tier merchandise with good stability and decrease energy utilization. Apple’s future modems (C2 and C3, presumably) are anticipated to extend efficiency with every era, in the end with the purpose of beating Qualcomm’s greatest choices in 2026 or 2027.
