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iPhone 13 iPhone 13 modem slightly disappointing

bbates123

bbates123

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 2, 2010
874
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Maybe I was hoping for too much with the new X60 modem but I haven't really noticed any improvements with my iPhone 13 mini vs my iPhone 12 mini. Signal strength and in-building penetration seems about the same. Speedtest showed that the 13 had slightly better download speeds. FWIW where I live it's low band 5G.

Anybody else here have a better experience?
 
I think efficiency is one of the biggest differences. I also think cellular providers haven’t really caught up yet to the new technology of the X60 from what I’ve read.
 
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My neighbor is getting much better RF ( upgraded from 12 Pro to 13 Pro ) inside the house! Saw it myself...about 750 Mbps down and about 80 Mbps up ( TMobile 5G UC ) My 12 PM isn't even close..
 
bbates123 said:
Maybe I was hoping for too much with the new X60 modem but I haven't really noticed any improvements with my iPhone 13 mini vs my iPhone 12 mini. Signal strength and in-building penetration seems about the same. Speedtest showed that the 13 had slightly better download speeds. FWIW where I live it's low band 5G.

Anybody else here have a better experience?
Click to expand...

Well…..it’s all about prospective. I am coming from a intel modem so it’s a big improvement for me.
 
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It was a little frustrating yesterday...I was in the middle of a Publix grocery store trying to look up some info...had 2 bars of 5G but couldn't get Google to respond, even moving closer to the door. Finally I had to call my wife to have her look it up. Maybe next time I'll try switching to LTE to see if that works.
 
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My WiFi range has improved considerably. Voice coverage has improved significantly as well. I no longer get the "All circuits are busy, please try your call later on" messages.

I'm coming from an iPhone 7 and everything about the phone rocks.
 
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M5RahuL said:
My neighbor is getting much better RF ( upgraded from 12 Pro to 13 Pro ) inside the house! Saw it myself...about 750 Mbps down and about 80 Mbps up ( TMobile 5G UC ) My 12 PM isn't even close..
Click to expand...
I took this screen shot while I was having my oil changed at the dealer. Impressive. My cell bill is about half as much as much my home bill and is twice as fast. Battery life is greatly improved over my 12PM.

2CEDAA87-D532-48B4-9187-1376C4746515.png
 
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QuietGamer said:
I took this screen shot while I was having my oil changed at the dealer. Impressive. My cell bill is about half as much as much my home bill and is twice as fast. Battery life is greatly improved over my 12PM.
Click to expand...
Wow, that's impressive indeed!
 
bbates123 said:
It was a little frustrating yesterday...I was in the middle of a Publix grocery store trying to look up some info...had 2 bars of 5G but couldn't get Google to respond, even moving closer to the door. Finally I had to call my wife to have her look it up. Maybe next time I'll try switching to LTE to see if that works.
Click to expand...
Grocery store is one of the worst places for reception for any phone.
 
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bbates123 said:
It was a little frustrating yesterday...I was in the middle of a Publix grocery store trying to look up some info...had 2 bars of 5G but couldn't get Google to respond, even moving closer to the door. Finally I had to call my wife to have her look it up. Maybe next time I'll try switching to LTE to see if that works.
Click to expand...
I’ve had the exact same experience with 13 mini grocery shopping. My Apple Watch refused to process Siri requests to send texts. I was on LTE only, and the. I tried 5g and it wasn’t any different.

disappointing because my 11 didn’t have these problems.

Outside the store I got 7mb on LTE and 24mb on 5g.

I’d love to keep 5g on but worried battery life will be affected. Guess I can test just keep testing it out to see what the battery drain difference is.

(And does anyone know how the 5g auto ACTUALLY works? How does it know how to switch between 4g and 5g?)
 
I have been using the 13 with 5G for a week coming from an 11 with LTE. Aside from speedtest benchmarks I see absolutely no difference in terms of network performance at normal tasks like surfing the web or streaming video. Even a HD video stream only needs around 5Mbps. I have no intention of downloading a 100GB VM image/parquet file/mp4 video regularly on the go so I’m not sure what the use case for 5G is?
 
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minimo3 said:
I have been using the 13 with 5G for a week coming from an 11 with LTE. Aside from speedtest benchmarks I see absolutely no difference in terms of network performance at normal tasks like surfing the web or streaming video. Even a HD video stream only needs around 5Mbps. I have no intention of downloading a 100GB VM image/parquet file/mp4 video regularly on the go so I’m not sure what the use case for 5G is?
Click to expand...
The only difference I’m seeing is 50%-100% faster download/upload speeds. Coverage strength isn’t any better (I don’t have the UW super fast 5g on Verizon… just that regular 5g)

It’s like they made the tower where I grocery shop a lot worse… or the chip in the 13 mini isn’t as good as prior year’s.
 
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Anyone notice some hang ups when switching between sims? I have tmobile esim and Verizon physical sim now. Sometimes when going back n forth tmobile will show 5g uc but it seemingly can’t get data. Either takes a minute to get data and/or I’ll toggle cellular data on/off to get it to work.

iPhone 13 pm on 15.2.1
 
The intel Modems that was in the 11 series were pretty good as far as signal strength and download speeds . But Qualcomm is king and apple shouldn’t even think about making there own modem .
 
Shadowbech said:
I guess depends on which grocery store it is. Grocery Store I go to even in the front, middle, back, just about anywhere I gut full 5G and very great receptions.
Click to expand...

In NH, the state runs 75 liquor stores and they bring in a lot of revenue as our tax rate on sales is lower than surrounding states. Our regular grocery store doesn't have WiFi. But last week, I just tested the WiFi and the liquor store next door to the grocery store provides free WiFi. Their signal is so strong that it covers the entire grocery store.

Your public dollars at work.
 
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