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These phones beat iPhone 14 Pro Max in fastest download speed test

Another aspect of Ookla’s Q1 2023 mobile performance report is how specific devices compare between Apple, Samsung, and Google. While the iPhone 14 Pro Max was king when it came to median download speeds last fall, for Q1 2023, that wasn’t the case. Here are the three smartphones that were faster.

Ookla shared its latest mobile performance report comparing the major US carriers for download and upload speeds, consistency, availability, and more.

Along with that, the study shows how the most popular smartphones in the US stacked up in Q1 2023 for download/upload speed and latency.

While iPhone 14 Pro Max earned the crown for speed in Q3 with a median of 147 Mbps download speed and 17 Mbps upload speed, Apple’s flagship lost that title in Q4. It turns out Samsung and Google’s latest devices were able to beat it in Q1 this year as well.

Fastest smartphones by download speed

The new Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra earned the top spot with 161.86 Mbps median download speed with the Galaxy Z Fold4 coming in second with 143.56 Google’s Pixel 7 Pro landed in third at 132.57 Mbps.

The iPhone 14 Pro Max came in fourth at 130.99 Mbps. Those numbers put the S23 Ultra’s median download speeds at 23% faster than the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

Upload speeds and latency were all close but the Galaxy S23 Ultra led with 16.19 Mbps for upload and the Pixel 7 Pro had the lowest latency at 50 ms.

Fastest smartphone download speeds Ookla study

For the big picture looking at the median download speeds for all iPhone and Samsung devices, the latter took the edge with median speeds of 91.57 Mbps compared to Apple’s 76.92 Mbps.

Those were both up from Q4 when Samsung saw 65.94 and Apple had 62.49 Mbps. Samsung also edged out Apple for median upload speeds and a two-millisecond lower latency.

iPhone vs Samsung median download speeds

Check out the mobile Ookla report for more performance results by carrier. We’ll have to wait and see if Apple can reclaim the median download speed crown with the iPhone 15 this fall.

Top image via PhoneBuff

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Avatar for Michael Potuck Michael Potuck

Michael is an editor for 9to5Mac. Since joining in 2016 he has written more than 3,000 articles including breaking news, reviews, and detailed comparisons and tutorials.


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