iPhone 12 Is 5G worth it ?

[JahBoolean]

Living on the country since the beginning of the 'VID but will be returning to an alpha- city mid next year.

May need the additional bandwidth as 4G gets quite swamped in urban areas.

Opinions on 5G in your areas and the perceivable benefit ?

Was hoping to hold out until the notch would be no more, arguably 2023.

 

[now i see it]

I don't have a 5G phone and I couldn't care less if my next one has it either.
Some people get blazing fast 5G service while others see no improvement or even slower speed. It all depends on where you are and where the 5G tower is. No way to make a recommendation.

 

[eyoungren]

For some it is. For me it is not.

5G is not built out like LTE yet and for my needs LTE in my area is strong and fast with coverage everywhere. We just got the iPhone 11 Pro Max in February and part of the reason was that we didn't need 5G.

 

[kargurin]

No.

 

[JahBoolean]

I'll hold out then, thank you for the inputs everyone !

 

[fwmireault]

For average customer (which I am), LTE was already fast enough for the vast majority of our usage. I’m sure that there are people that will take advantage of the extra speed of 5G, but it’s not a game changer for me (and I believe for most people)

 

[cynics]

Where I live Verizon is the worst. I don't know there 5g coverage however if I found out it was dramatically improved and I wasn't dropping calls all day I would get a new iPhone.

Switch sucks btw, Verizon could never even get their act together for LTE now they are going to attempt 5g...ugh

 

[BigMcGuire]

5G is not worth it. I live 40 miles out of Los Angeles so almost everywhere I go has 5G.

5G is horrific in some cases... just sitting in my car, I can watch webpages load as if it was dialup. Roll down windows? Starts loading again (or switch to LTE). 5G seems to have more latency than LTE in this area. Both my wife and I complain about 5G speeds - not enough for us to turn it off, but ... good grief, for a "new" technology, it's got a ways to go.

I remember LTE rollout with the HTC Thunderbolt - it was much faster than 3G and ... it drained my battery in hours. At least 5G rollout isn't that bad - just, I'm not at all impressed by the speed.

Sure, at several VERY small parts of the mall I get that insane ultra wideband? - that's impressive. But again, it's only available in a few block radius before it drops off to normal 5G.


Verizon forces you into new cellular plans to take advantage of 5G too. Wasn't happy about it, but I knew it was coming.

Biggest advantage? I can upload masses of photos to iCloud faster.

 

[firedept]

Unfortunately not yet. I live near San Diego and 5G here is real spotty.

 

[xxray]

As of now, probably not. Within a couple years? Yes.

It's a definite work-in-progress and currently in the growing pains phase.

 

[iHorseHead]

I have iPhone 12 mini and I often use data connection and it says 5G but I don't notice any major speed differences.

 

[eyoungren]

Switch sucks btw, Verizon could never even get their act together for LTE now they are going to attempt 5g...ugh

That's kind of why I went with the iP11M in Feb. We went through Network Vision on Sprint when they were trying to roll out LTE. We didn't actually get LTE until two years after they started and even then it was weak.

I figure the 11 is the final LTE device Apple has made and so all the years of upgrades and improvements culminate there. LTE is mature and everywhere I go - and I don't care to be part of the 5G rollout process like I was with LTE. We will wait until 5G gets to where LTE is now.

 

[JahBoolean]

Somewhat unrelated to my initial inquiry, it has been told that the 5G "modems" do use quite a bit of energy, do they ?

 

[Phil77354]

If your question is related to a plan (or need) to purchase a new phone, then my suggestion is to get a model with the latest specs (5G etc) because that way you won't be falling behind in a year or two as the higher speeds become more common and other applications and uses will be taking advantage of those speeds.

If you don't necessarily need a new phone immediately, then it is another matter and I generally agree with the previous posts.

 

[JahBoolean]

Vanity and possibly cashing in on the residual value of my 11 pro before the 5G depreciation wave hits older devices.

 

[Phil77354]

There are some features with the 12 (besides 5G) that may or may not have value to you - LiDAR scanner and night mode capability, ceramic shield front, MagSafe capability, etc. However your 11 pro is a new enough model that it will still have value when the iPhone 13 is released, and at this point I personally would wait and see what features it will have. Its always going to be a bigger (and more compelling) jump going two (or more) generations when you upgrade.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Somewhat unrelated to my initial inquiry, it has been told that the 5G "modems" do use quite a bit of energy, do they ?

Not really noticing much of an energy usage/difference. I haven't done heavy usage of 5G or 5G UWB. But I'm using the 12 Pro Max - has a tank of a battery.

 

[mlody]

My wife has 12 Pro while I still have 11 Pro Max - both on Verizon. The very first thing we did was disable 5G on her phone and enable LTE - never looked back.
We are 2 minutes walking from Verizon 5G UW antenna - it is great to see up to 3.0 Gbps downloads, but that is about it. The regular 5G seems to be always slower than LTE, so no point keeping it on. As a matter of fact, the regular 5G is about as fast as LTE on 11 Pro Max; however, the LTE on 12 seems to be significantly faster. In Chicago downtown we have seen up to 400 Mbps LTE speeds while my 11 Pro Max would cap out around 200 Mbps.

If you already have decent LTE, 5G is not going to make any difference, at least the Verizon's 5G.

 

[NoBoMac]

Will echo the "not needed" side. As others have mentioned, most people don't need it, LTE is plenty fast and widely available, wifi is everywhere so might not be much need for cellular data.

Re: power drain: not that I've heard/seen, but would not be surprised, and probably due to usage patterns and availability of cellular network.

When the iPhone 3G game out, plenty of people complaining about battery life, the network was slower than 2G. And probably true in that everyone was getting that iPhone and hammering away at ATT's under-built network. So, slow network, modem constantly banging away at the towers, using up power broadcasting. First iPhone with 4G followed a similar pattern along with the "modem sucks" comments. As the networks built out and the modems got better, everyone saw improvements all around.

Add in dead zones and weak signals causing modem hopping between different network types, can see drain as the modem keeps pinging. Heck, see that with my SE2 as I live in a cellular dead zone and "Cellular Network" can pop-up fairly high in the battery usage report even though I'm on wifi and not really using the phone (just playing podcasts).

 

[jdb8167]

T-Mobile just turned on 5G near my home. It has made absolutely no difference in real life since when I'm home, I use my WiFi network. Nearly every local business also has WiFi. The 5G network is T-Mobile's mid-band so I can get about 800 Mbps but so what? It's not like I'm playing 4K video (which doesn't need 5G anyway) on my iPhone 12 Pro when I'm out getting groceries.

Now if T-Mobile wants to offer me their $50/month home internet offer again but now with 5G instead of LTE, I might be interested but that offer seems to have gone away. I'll take 800 Mbps 5G for $50 over 300-400 Mbps with Xfinity at $100 but so far, requesting T-Mobile home internet service seems to be ignored.

 

[cynics]

There are benefits outside of bandwidth with 5G. I just don't think they are that pertinent atm.

Towers can have higher capacity so less infrastructure for faster deployment). Congested areas could see upgrades faster.

Lower latency. Great for gaming and such but lower latency just makes everything feel snappier.

A downside is we are seeing deployment while privacy and techs are still prodding it for basic weakness.

 

[clarencek]

The only time I notice a difference in 5G is when it switches to the UW band. Then I get download speeds over 1000 Mbps. Otherwise 5G and LTE are the same for me on my 12 Max Pro - in the 100 - 200 range.

 

[profcutter]

Haven’t noticed anything of an improvement over LTE. Was in Seattle, now on the coast, phone says 5G, but the latency is terrible, 50-70 msec, and speeds are no faster than LTE.

 

[michalm]

I live in central London and i love 5G. But for me it is not about speed, but coverage. 4G is swamped in places to a point it just stops working. With 5G and so little few with 5G phones, it flies everywhere.

It'll change though as people upgrade, but for now, I enjoy coverage eI've never had for years! (I'm on EE).

 

[monkey28rb]

If you have tmobile, it is worth it. In metro Orlando I am getting speeds of over 500Mbps regularly.