Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro is unlikely to catch up to the best Androids

Apple doesn’t like to hype the specifications of its new devices much, focusing more on the real-life capabilities and features enabled by various display, camera, processor, or battery upgrades than things like resolution, clock speed, cell size, or memory count. But theoretical numbers often correlate with the concrete user experience, which is why it’s definitely important to know what the hot new iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max can do in terms of 4G LTE speeds, for instance.

Unsurprisingly, no cellular speed tests were performed on stage at the September 10 launch event in Cupertino, while the official iPhone 11 Pro spec sheet keeps things as vague as always, listing Gigabit-class LTE support with 4×4 MIMO and LAA for “all models.” That’s all iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max models, mind you, with the “regular” iPhone 11 listed as including slightly humbler Gigabit-class LTE technology with 2×2 MIMO.

In case you’re wondering, the iPhone XS and XS Max also came with “Gigabit-class” LTE modems and 4×4 MIMO, while the iPhone XR featured a similarly downgraded 2×2 MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) antenna design in combination with a generic Gigabit-class LTE chipset. That seems to suggest nothing has changed, but according to one company specialized in independent evaluations of download and upload speeds, that might not be the case after all.

Based on nationwide data collected from August 9 to September 9, the LTE modems inside Apple’s latest high-end handsets make the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max faster than last year’s XS and XS Max by an average of around 13 percent. To reach that conclusion, SpeedSmart examined all big four carriers, also declaring T-Mobile the best of the bunch for both downloads and uploads, closely followed by Verizon. AT&T ranked third at a substantial distance, with Sprint dead last (as usual) and pretty much impossible to include in the same league as T-Mobile, especially in terms of upload speed.

Talking numbers, it looks like you can expect the iPhone 11 Pro to reach anywhere between 37 and 49 Mbps in downloads, up from 32 to 42 Mbps for the XS and XS Max. Of course, these are theoretical nationwide averages, so depending on where you live… and about a dozen other factors, your real-world figures will often be significantly lower.

Another thing we need to highlight is that it’s not entirely clear where SpeedSmart got its iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max units from to be able to perform these tests starting August 9. After all, the handsets are only scheduled to go up for pre-order on September 13, with deliveries kicking off 7 days later. Now, we’re not saying these tests didn’t happen, but it might be wise to wait and see if other sources confirm the data and apparent LTE improvement.