- Ookla has tested the Wi-Fi performance of multiple flagship phones
- The iPhone 17 range has performed especially well
- That’s largely thanks to its new N1 Wi-Fi chip, Ookla says
Before Apple moved its best iPhones to its all-new, in-house N1 wireless chip, the benefits weren’t exactly clear, and you would have been forgiven for being apprehensive about the move. According to a new study from network specialists Ookla, though, those fears appear to have been unfounded, and that’s great news for iPhone fans.
Ookla’s report states that the N1 chip delivers “material performance improvements over predecessors, pushing it ahead of many Android flagship devices in Wi-Fi.” It came to this conclusion by measuring its own “global, crowdsourced Speedtest Intelligence data from the six weeks after the iPhone 17 family of devices hit stores.”
The results speak for themselves. Compared to the iPhone 16 range (equipped with Broadcom-manufactured Wi-Fi chips), the iPhone 17 series with the N1 chip offers up to 40% higher download and upload speeds. If Wi-Fi speed is a priority consideration for you when upgrading your phone, that alone could be decisive.
The N1 chip offered other generational improvements. When comparing the 10th percentile – that is, the lowest 10% of all results – between the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 ranges, the latter saw impressive progress. In Ookla’s words, that implies that “Apple’s custom silicon lifts the floor more than the ceiling” and should ensure you get better base speeds in many scenarios. In particularly challenging Wi-Fi situations, the N1’s 10th percentile speeds were up to 60% faster than those of the iPhone 16 roster.
Rising to the top
The findings are interesting because, on paper, the N1 chip doesn’t offer a huge spec advantage compared to the Wi-Fi chip in the iPhone 16 lineup. Both boast Wi-Fi 7 and Apple’s second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, and while the N1 uses Bluetooth 6 rather than its predecessor’s Bluetooth 5.3, the difference may not be stark. That might have led some people to assume that Apple’s latest iPhones would not offer much in the way of a Wi-Fi upgrade and could struggle against many of the best Android phones.
Yet Ookla doesn’t believe that’s the case. Compared to the Android market, the iPhone’s N1 chip performed exceptionally well, hitting the highest 10th percentile score with a speed of 56.08Mbps, suggesting it’s a strong option if you know your Wi-Fi will be patchy.
On paper, the N1 might appear to be hindered by its channel width, which is capped at 160MHz compared to the 320MHz of some Android devices. But Ookla says this “does not materially affect performance in real world use for most people,” potentially because few people are using 320MHz-compatible routers right now.
In terms of numbers, the iPhone 17 range achieved the highest median download speeds in North America, with a score of 416.14 Mbps, putting it slightly ahead of the Google Pixel 10 Pro’s 411.21 Mbps.
Globally, though, the Pixel 10 Pro gets the edge, achieving median download speeds of 335.33Mbps to the iPhone 17 range’s 329.56Mbps. As for upload speeds, the Xiaomi 15T Pro was the clear winner, with a global median upload speed of 129.22Mbps, comfortably beating the iPhone 17’s 103.26Mbps and the Pixel 10 Pro’s 94.58Mbps.
It’s evident, though, that the iPhone’s N1 chip is no slouch. If you’ve been put off by concerns about the iPhone 17 range’s Wi-Fi performance now that it’s on a new Wi-Fi chip, you needn’t worry. It looks like it offers a serious upgrade over the iPhone 16 and has risen close to the top of the pack when compared to the Android competition. Not bad for a first outing.
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alexblake.techradar@gmail.com (Alex Blake)
