Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
if its not available, and your plan doesn't support it, it wont be used, so no to need to switch anything off?

Not sure- maybe if it's set to "on" the phone will keep trying to look for 5G, kind of like what happens when you're in roaming? Guess I'll find out on Friday. Either way, it won't hurt to make sure it's turned off.
 
Sounds like a killer if you are streaming any sports game. Any options to turn off 5G and revert to 4G towers?
 
The 4G in the iPhone 12 is suppose be twice as fast as the 4G in the iPhone 11. So I guess the 5G modem does have an overall improvement even if you force 4G only.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrightCanon
5g tech looks good on paper
but real world results may vary
i'll wait awhile before i have a 5g verdict
 
5G is not needed today. Just good coverage of the latest LTE standards is sufficient. The most optimal option for the next few years.
Nor widely available. Love the new phones but the iPhone 12 is looking more and more like a transitional device. No high refresh rate, no fingerprint scanner (the new normal) old charge port, reports of mag-safe accessories falling off. I'm going to sit this round out
 
20% is massive. Looks like Auto mode is the best option. Still a shame.
Why do you think Apple usually waits even longer to switch over. The issue here was 5G was being much rolled out much faster by all carriers so they moved faster than usual.
 
You are talking about the preferences of people depending on their desires, regional position and about marketing component, and I am talking about technical necessity and validity. In fact, today there is not a single critical reason for the strict need for 5G.

The only excuse would be to it today if this
A) Not much more expensive than previous technology
B) Does not have a greater negative effect (battery, coverage quality, etc.)

5G does not yet correspond to these two points.
I still think you're wrong. You're also trying to paint your argument into a corner of hyper-specificity with the strict need phrasing. Regardless of that, your A and B arguments 1. fall flat from a realistic standpoint and 2. are short term from a logical standpoint.

A) Of course the tech is going to be more expensive - initially. It's still being developed and infrastructured ← nor really a word but you know what I mean. There's no practical way for it to be not much more expensive. Over time, just like with the previous tech, the expense will lessen.
B) It's new tech. It has to iterated. How it affects battery real world battery life can only be assessed in the real world. As it matures the affect on battery life will be less of an issue. We have to start somewhere. No tech comes out of the gate perfect.

Where we agree is 5G isn't of practical use for most non-Asian consumers right now. From Apple's business standpoint, the need is greater imo.
 
I find it funny peoples argument on 5G that it isn't needed right now. Flash back to last year all people were talking about was that the iPhone lacked 5G support. Apple adds 5G and now people say it isn't worth it due to the slight battery life loss.

Seriously every year someone will find an issue with the new iPhone release because it either lacks a random feature people expected or actually has the feature but isn't implement the way they want it. Did I want a 120hz display? Sure. Do I need it? Nope. I feel 5G will be the best option to add right now as it pushes carriers to develop their network more. Also think about countries outside of the US on their 5G rollout. US might be behind but other countries might not be.
 
  • Like
Reactions: coredev
Of course not, but this is not the case here, your numbers are totally out of reality.
5G is much more than only 20% faster than 4G, and consumed only 20% or 25% more battery per second, so it's better.


Do you want 3G at 1 Mbps with a 20 hour battery life?
Or 2G at 0.05 Mbps with a 30 hour battery life?
No!

The goal is to accomplish a given task in less time. Since it consumed less time, although using more battery per second, it will still consume the same battery or even less battery in total... and taking less time!

Dude, you keep misrepresenting what the test actually showed. Go back and pay attention to the details when reading the actual test.

The test shows that when the phone was set to load a new website every 30 seconds, the phone using 5G used 20-25% more power than the phone using 4G. The phones were not downloading for the entire 30 seconds, so the difference is not a "per second" difference. Since both 4G and 5G can load most websites in one second or less, this means both phones were sitting idle and using the same amount of power for 29 seconds. So that 20-25% difference is not per second, its per ~1 out of every 30 seconds. If both phones were constantly downloading over the data connection, the % difference would be MUCH higher.

Your other examples don't make much sense. 2G actually uses A LOT more power than 4G. 3G uses about the same amount of power as 4G (per second), but since it's slower it's less power efficient.

The problem is time is a tough unit to use to compare these technologies. People keep saying that, even if 5G is less efficient, it's done sooner so the phone can idle for longer and that makes up for the difference. Well that might be true, but it's speculation until we take time out of the equation. This is because idle time depends on what the data is used for. A 3MB song can be 5 minutes of listening (while data is idle), a 50KB ebook can be 6 hours of reading (while data is idle), and a 5GB tv episode can be 30 minutes of watching (while data is idle). So that comparison is very dependent on usage. It's better to just take time out of the equation.

What you're looking for is how much power each technology uses per data interval. In other words, how many watts per kilobyte, or something similar. As far as I know, we don't have that data yet. It could very well show that the 5G iphone is equally, or more, efficient than a 4G iphone. We just don't know yet. This test however, suggests but does not prove, that this is untrue and that 5G is less efficient.
 
I'm aware that battery life varies greatly depending on the individual person's real world usage. But my god these articles/reviews are all over the place when it comes to battery life. The Verge claimed battery life lasted all day on the iPhone 12, even when conducting 5G tests in San Francisco. But they couldn't say the same for the iPhone 12 Pro inferring that the battery life on the Pro was worse that the 12. Now this article is claiming that the Pro lasted 1 more hour compared to the 12 even when they're supposed to have the same battery life? So confusing.
 
For those waiting for a battery pack that will charge your phone wirelessly, then you could have a very long wait.

Wireless charging is incredibly inefficient, even with the phone located perfectly with the battery pack. I could never see Apple even considering it, there is a perfectly good port that is much more efficient for charging from battery to battery.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Stridr69
Apples estimates are always off by hours. ~ 6hours is the most I ever get when on calls all day long, especially if any are zoom. I'd been using an Apple battery case and even with that I'm down to a half charge by the end of the day. Unfortunately the third one just failed because of the poor connector design, and the wont replace it. Good news is that during COVID I can work with it tethered most days, but when travel starts again it'll be a problem. This, by the way, is why a cordless phone is a lousy idea. aside from taking hours to sync content, there's no good way to charge and use when on the go.

give me a phone that truly lasts all day, then worry about making it thin.
[automerge]1603291966[/automerge]
For those waiting for a battery pack that will charge your phone wirelessly, then you could have a very long wait.

Wireless charging is incredibly inefficient, even with the phone located perfectly with the battery pack. I could never see Apple even considering it, there is a perfectly good port that is much more efficient for charging from battery to battery.

can't exactly do it in your pocket while walking through an airport either!
 
According to a lot of posters here, Apple was late with 5G. In reality, Apple was smart to skip Qualcomm’s first generation 5G chips, which were real power hogs.

This second generation is much improved. These benchmarks are fine.
I agree. Basically seems like the worse case scenario and imo, doesn't represent the usage of a typical user.

However, imagine the hubris if Apple skipped 5g in favor of promotion? Wow...
 
I have noticed similar battery drain on any worse signal as far back as I can remember.
my 11 pro max right now will drain significantly faster if I go out to the deer lease that has little to no signal to latch on to.
‘it has done this even back to my Samsung flip phone, palm treo, on and on.
I had zero expectation anything at all on that front would change.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.