Early iPhone 12 5G speed tests show how results will vary by carrier and location

Chance Miller | Oct 14 2020 - 6:46 am PT

One of the headlining features of iPhone 12 is its support for 5G connectivity. Ahead of pre-orders beginning on Friday, the first 5G speed tests with the iPhone 12 have hit the web, offering a better, but still incomplete, look at what kind of speeds you can expect with the iPhone 12 using 5G in the United States.

The iPhone 12 supports two types of 5G connectivity: mmWave 5G and low-band sub-6GHz 5G, though only the models sold in the United States support the mmWave 5G technology. In general, mmWave 5G is significantly faster than sub‑6 GHz 5G, but also difficult to deploy and generally limited to more urban areas.

So far, the tests we’ve seen from the iPhone 12 running on 5G are limited to AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile in the United States. The tests recently passed through the SpeedSmart app, which is a speed testing app available for iPhone and iPad.

SpeedSmart emphasizes that only a “small number of tests” have surfaced so far, across a handful of major metropolitan cities in the United States.

Here are the results for the AT&T iPhone 12 5G tests, using only the sub-6GHz 5G technology, not mmWave 5G:

Here are the results for the Verizon iPhone 12 5G tests, which are using the mmWave 5G technology:

And finally, here are a mix of results from iPhone 12 5G tests with T-Mobile, using a mix of mmWave 5G and mid-band 5G:

As you can see, Verizon’s mmWave 5G is by far the most impressive in terms of performance. AT&T shows show sub-6GHz 5G speeds that are marginally better than 4G LTE, though T-Mobile’s mmWave 5G performance is certainly notable. SpeedSmart explains that mid-band 5G, as seen only with T-Mobile at this point, is what most people should expect:

The sweet spot for most will be Mid Band 5G. As you can see T-Mobile with download speeds in excess of 400 Mbps using Mid Band 5G is very impressive, most people should end up with results like this if they are in an area with mid-band 5G deployed, otherwise most will notice very little to no difference when going to 5G.

You can read the full results over on the SpeedSmart website.

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