The folks at PCMag have compared the iPhone 11 Pro LTE performance with that of iPhone 11. As expected the iPhone 11 Pro is faster than the iPhone 11. Surprisingly both the new iPhones were only marginally better than its predecessor. This is surprising since the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro feature Intel XMM7660 modem, which is rated to perform better than its predecessor.

The tests have also established the fact that LTE performance on higher-end iPhones is much better than that of entry-level iPhone 11/iPhone XR. According to the report, iPhone 11 Pro offers an average LTE speed of 64 MBPS while the iPhone 11 offers 49.69MBPS. The performance gap widens further when we compare iPhone 11 Pro with the iPhone 11. The top of the line iPhone 11 Pro achieved an average download speed of 76MBPS as opposed to 49MBPS on iPhone 11. In other words, your device is equally responsible for LTE speeds and carriers are not the only one to be blamed.

PCMag has performed the LTE test on different carriers across NYC. AT&T topped the list with an average download speed of 96MBPS on iPhone XS. Needless to say, you need to be using iPhone 11 Pro or iPhone XS to be able to achieve higher average download speeds.

The Reason for the Difference in Speeds between iPhones?

You might be wondering why the iPhone 11 Pro and XS surge ahead when it comes to average LTE download speeds. Well, the premium iPhone lineup use 4×4 MIMO as opposed to the 2×2 used on entry level iPhones. In other words, 4×4 MIMO uses an increased number of antennas for parallel data streams as opposed to 2×2 MIMO. This is the reason why iPhone 11 Pro and XS offer twice as much maximum speed as the iPhone X, iPhone 11 or XR.

If you want to get the best out of your carrier then make sure you buy a device with 4x4MIMO. Apple believes that iPhone 11 Pro is capable of achieving a speed of up to 1.6Gbps. In order to achieve this, the modem takes three 20MHz channels of the spectrum at 4X4 MIMO along with two 20Mhz channels with 2×2 MIMO. Furthermore, PCMag says that the difference in LTE speeds on iPhone 11 Pro and the iPhone XS Max is not significant as iPhone 11 Pro is expected to close the gap with a larger testing data set (Speedtests are crowdsourced.).

The bottom line, if you are someone who needs the maximum LTE speeds on iPhone upgrade to the iPhone 11 Pro or the Pro Max.