With the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Apple made some changes under the hood which saw the company turn to the use of both Qualcomm and Intel modems for some models of the device. Prior to this, Apple had pretty much used Qualcomm’s modems exclusively. When it was discovered that Intel’s modems are being used, we also wondered how this might impact performance.
Turns out there is some difference. According to some tests that have been conducted, it was discovered that Qualcomm’s modems appear to have better reception in places where the signal is fainter. This means that if you’re inside a building or underground, the tests seem to suggest that the Qualcomm model will provide you with better service than the Intel model.
The disparity in performance was not just limited to the iPhone 7. Cellular Insights, who performed the test, brought in other phones as comparisons which included the iPhone 6s, LG G5, Google Nexus 5X, and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. It seems that the Intel iPhone 7 got left in the dust while the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge proved to be the clear winner.
Now whether or not this will affect your daily usage remains to be seen. So far there doesn’t appear to be too many complaints regarding reception (there were issues with reception but those were addressed with software fixes), meaning that maybe in real-world usage the disparity can’t be felt as much.
It also reminds us of the time the iPhone 6s was discovered to have chipsets made by Samsung and TSMC, with the latter proving to have better battery life than the former, although like we said then, those were merely tests and real-world usage is probably what really matters.