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Apple launched C1, its first in-house 5G modem, earlier this year with the iPhone 16e and early findings suggested it performed well against Qualcomm’s own modems. Now a new study says otherwise—but with the huge asterisk that it was paid for by Qualcomm.
New study shows C1 getting handily beat, but the details deserve more attention
Cellular Insights was commissioned by Qualcomm to perform a study of the iPhone 16e’s C1 modem against two Android smartphones with Qualcomm modems.
You can read the executive summary here, and the full report here.
The report makes some big claims that seem to indicate a huge advantage for Qualcomm’s modems. For example, the following two stats are mentioned:
Download speeds: Android devices were 34.3% to 35.2% faster
Upload speeds: Android devices were 81.4% to 91.0% faster
We’ve previously seen through an Ookla study that Apple’s C1 actually has an advantage. How can both things be true?
It’s not entirely clear, but one possibility is that the Cellular Insights data is being skewed by Qualcomm’s higher top-speed capacities. Ookla’s study showed the same, but emphasized that hitting such peak performance is rare for smartphones, and in typical use, the C1 won out.
9to5Mac’s Take
The fact that Qualcomm commissioned the new study is of course noteworthy. Also, browsing Cellular Insights’ website seems to show that its last published work before this report was in March 2017. Eight years of dormancy sure seems like another good reason for skepticism.
Is it possible that Qualcomm’s modems offer overall better real-world performance than Apple’s C1? Sure. But I’ll be more likely to believe that when the study in question comes from another source.
What do you make of the Qualcomm comparison to Apple’s C1? Let us know in the comments.
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