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iPad 2 has better wifi spec than iPhone 4S

R

RolledUp20s

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 14, 2011
243
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Wrexham, North Wales
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

This comes as a surprise to me, seeing as the iPhone 4S was released after the iPad 2.

I recently bought a Netgear N300 which supports up to 5GHz, my iPad 2 will see and connect to this where as my iPhone 4S only sees the 2.4GHz connection. Checked on the apple site and that confirms the 4S wifi speed as 802.1n 2.4GHz only.

Just thought it was Intersting, why didnt apple use the faster wifi in the 4S?
 
I assume it has to do with battery life. iPad 2 has a bigger battery. I also had to change my network to 2.4Ghz
 
RolledUp20s said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

This comes as a surprise to me, seeing as the iPhone 4S was released after the iPad 2.

I recently bought a Netgear N300 which supports up to 5GHz, my iPad 2 will see and connect to this where as my iPhone 4S only sees the 2.4GHz connection. Checked on the apple site and that confirms the 4S wifi speed as 802.1n 2.4GHz only.

Just thought it was Intersting, why didnt apple use the faster wifi in the 4S?
Click to expand...

This has been covered . . . covered . . . then covered some more . . . ALL over the place.

Glad you had an epiphany.
 
oiuh151 said:
Size constraints.

2.4GHz is generally better than 5GHz anyway with the exception of network interference.
http://compnetworking.about.com/od/wirelessfaqs/f/5ghz-gear.htm
Click to expand...

5ghz is less congested which can result in faster speeds, however 2.4ghz penetrates walls better and can reach further. 5ghz is loads better when I use it in the same room.

I don't know if size constraints is a valid reason. A dual band wifi chip isn't much bigger at all. My galaxy s2 has one. I know it is bigger than an iPhone, but it also has a larger battery, space for a micro sd card and it takes a full size sim.
 
matttye said:
5ghz is less congested which can result in faster speeds, however 2.4ghz penetrates walls better and can reach further. 5ghz is loads better when I use it in the same room.

I don't know if size constraints is a valid reason. A dual band wifi chip isn't much bigger at all. My galaxy s2 has one. I know it is bigger than an iPhone, but it also has a larger battery, space for a micro sd card and it takes a full size sim.
Click to expand...
It has a dual-band WIFI chip, so does the iPhone 4.

The iPhone 4 and iPad 2 share the same Broadcom dual-band wifi/bluetooth/FM. Neither device uses the FM capability. And the iPhone 4 has neither the antenna nor firmware support for 5 GHz band.

The iPhone 4S uses a newer Broadcom dual-band wifi/bluetooth/FM transceiver. Again, the FM portions are unused. The bluetooth is updated for 4.0 support. The iPhone 4S does not include the antenna structure nor firmware to activate the 5 GHz wifi portion of the chip. It stands to reason, the iPad 3 will use the same chip, and will have firmware and antenna support for the 5 GHz band.

It's most likely a space constraint for another antenna tuned for 5GHz band.
 
What's your wifi speed on the ipad2 vs the iPhone?

I get 30Mbits up and down as max thus far when benchmarking on the 4S, i think that is by far enough.. Too bad i don't have an ipad2 to do a comparison with.. And i hope you got something faster than 30Mbit seeing that you claim that it's faster in the ipad2, not that you'd need faster than that on a phone.
But i do understand why one is curious on which is faster and by how much etc.


Screen below from said benchmark, sorry it's in Swedish, but i think you see the important bit, the numbers :) The first is receiving files while the other is sending files via WIFI. Accesstime 6ms... pretty fast if you ask me!
 

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M Quick said:
What's your wifi speed on the ipad2 vs the iPhone?

I get 30Mbits up and down as max thus far when benchmarking on the 4S, i think that is by far enough.. Too bad i don't have an ipad2 to do a comparison with.. And i hope you got something faster than 30Mbit seeing that you claim that it's faster in the ipad2, not that you'd need faster than that on a phone.
But i do understand why one is curious on which is faster and by how much etc.


Screen below from said benchmark, sorry it's in Swedish, but i think you see the important bit, the numbers :)
Click to expand...
Dunno who you are talking to, but I didn't claim iPad 2 had faster WiFi, only that it had 5GHz.

It's 5GHz transceiver and antenna system is only a 1x1, single spacial stream. That means it is max theoretical bandwidth of 72mbps. After protocol and encryption overhead, max realistic should be around 32mbps. I've personally seen 29.60 Mbps over 5GHz WiFi to speedtest.net on my iPad 2 (not an ideal test, but I don't care to invest time either).

The 2.4GHz N should be the exact same speed, 72 Mbps single spacial stream.

It's merely a matter of compatibility if you don't have a simultaneous dual-band router, or if you have a lot of congestion on the 2.4 GHz band. Like if you live in a dense apartment or condo complex, rather than owning a home with neighbor separation.
 
Menel said:
Dunno who you are talking to, but I didn't claim iPad 2 had faster WiFi, only that it had 5GHz.

It's 5GHz transceiver and antenna system is only a 1x1, single spacial stream. That means it is max theoretical bandwidth of 72mbps. After protocol and encryption overhead, max realistic should be around 32mbps. I've personally seen 29.60 Mbps over 5GHz WiFi to speedtest.net on my iPad 2.

The 2.4GHz N should be the exact same speed.

It's merely a matter of compatibility if you don't have a simultaneous dual-band router, or if you have a lot of congestion on the 2.4 GHz band. Like if you live in a dense apartment or condo complex, rather than owning a home with neighbor separation.
Click to expand...

No, not you, the OP of course :)

But your explanation seems to be spot on for the 4S as well as i'm reaching 32Mbit.. Though i've seen screens of one user who hit up to 36Mbit down, though that's not a big difference.
 
Menel said:
Dunno who you are talking to, but I didn't claim iPad 2 had faster WiFi, only that it had 5GHz.

It's 5GHz transceiver and antenna system is only a 1x1, single spacial stream. That means it is max theoretical bandwidth of 72mbps. After protocol and encryption overhead, max realistic should be around 32mbps. I've personally seen 29.60 Mbps over 5GHz WiFi to speedtest.net on my iPad 2 (not an ideal test, but I don't care to invest time either).

The 2.4GHz N should be the exact same speed, 72 Mbps single spacial stream.

It's merely a matter of compatibility if you don't have a simultaneous dual-band router, or if you have a lot of congestion on the 2.4 GHz band. Like if you live in a dense apartment or condo complex, rather than owning a home with neighbor separation.
Click to expand...

I get around 40mbps on 5ghz band using my iPad 2. Not sure how accurate the speedtest.net app is though; it says I have 13mbps upload but when I use the website on my pc I never have more than 10mbps upload. My connection is 100mb down/10 up.
 
M Quick said:
What's your wifi speed on the ipad2 vs the iPhone?

I get 30Mbits up and down as max thus far when benchmarking on the 4S, i think that is by far enough.. Too bad i don't have an ipad2 to do a comparison with.. And i hope you got something faster than 30Mbit seeing that you claim that it's faster in the ipad2, not that you'd need faster than that on a phone.
But i do understand why one is curious on which is faster and by how much etc.


Screen below from said benchmark, sorry it's in Swedish, but i think you see the important bit, the numbers :) The first is receiving files while the other is sending files via WIFI. Accesstime 6ms... pretty fast if you ask me!
Click to expand...


Just a did quick speedtest on both..

iPhone 4S upload was 0.21Mbps (2nd test was 0.36 aswel...lol, not really accurate that speedtest app)
iPad 2 was 0.36Mbps

However, my provider actually has a cap at 0.36 upload

On my old provider i used to get 1.01Mbps but that service wasnt as good..
Anyway, those quick test show the difference anyway..

----------
likethesoup2 said:
This has been covered . . . covered . . . then covered some more . . . ALL over the place.

Glad you had an epiphany.
Click to expand...

Really? Its a Forum...:rolleyes:
If youve seen this before why not just ignore it, instead of posting ignorant "i'm so sad i know every thread topic in here"

I never use the search in forums...does that make you mad?
 
RolledUp20s said:
Just a did quick speedtest on both..

iPhone 4S upload was 0.21Mbps
iPad 2 was 0.36Mbps

However, my provider actually has a cap at 0.36 upload

On my old provider i used to get 1.01Mbps but that service wasnt as good..
Anyway, those quick test show the difference anyway..
Click to expand...


Erm, how sure are you that this is due to the quality of the WiFi connection? I mean, those speeds are all far slower than even an 802.11g signal, let alone an 802.11n signal of any kind, can produce, unless I'm missing something?
 
mkrishnan said:
Erm, how sure are you that this is due to the quality of the WiFi connection? I mean, those speeds are all far slower than even an 802.11g signal, let alone an 802.11n signal of any kind, can produce, unless I'm missing something?
Click to expand...

Thats the speedtest app on both iphone/ipad... Results change everytime
So yeah, theyre nothing to go off


Opening safari on both and loading this site, the ipad loads the full page before the iphone..so theres something lol
 
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