If the difference between the performance of the iPhone 7 32 GB and 256 GB are not enough for you, I tell you now that there are big differences between the performances of GSM modems. Starting this year, Apple decided to implement Intel's GSM modems in iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, they being offered together with Qualcomm's.
Basically, iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus have incorporated an Intel XMM7360 and a Qualcomm MDM9645M modem, the latter having better performance. According to recent tests, Qualcomm's GSM modem offers up to 30% better performance than the Intel modem, the difference being very large.
To do the tests, an environment was simulated in which the GSM signal power was gradually reduced from -85dBm to reproduce the distance from a GSM cell. LTE bands 12, 4 and 7 were used for the tests, and the results are surprising, but not at all in favor of those from Intel, used for the first time by Apple.
iPhone 7 - poor performance with the new Intel modem
In the image above you have a first test done for the two Intel and Qualcomm modems used in iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. You can notice that when the signal is strong, they offer the same performance, but as the signal strength decreases, so does the performance of the Intel modem, the difference compared to that of Qualcomm being surprisingly large.
Practically, the Qualcomm modem has much better performance in areas where the signal is weak, so users will be able to surf the Internet at much better speeds. Below you have an explanation offered by them for the performance differences between the two components, and thus we have a new problem that differentiates iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
"Both iPhone 7 Plus variants perform similarly in ideal conditions. At -96dBm the Intel variant needed to have Transport Block Size adjusted as BLER well exceeded the 2% threshold. At -105dBm the gap widened to 20%, and at -108dBm to a whopping 75%. As a result of such a huge performance delta between the Intel and Qualcomm powered devices, we purchased another A1784 (AT&T) iPhone 7 Plus, in order to eliminate any possibility of a faulty device. The end result was virtually identical. […] At -121dBm, the Intel variant performed more in line with its Qualcomm counterpart. Overall, the average performance delta between the two is in the 30% range in favor of the Qualcomm."
Comparing with the Galaxy S7 Edge and other smartphones, the Intel modem in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus has halved performance, while the Qualcomm one achieves marginally better performance. The differences between Samsung's smartphone and Apple's are very large, large enough to reduce page loading times by seconds or tens of seconds.
Unfortunately, the Apple company succeeded in deceiving its users by choosing Intel in terms of providing the GSM modem, but also in terms of inferior performance compared to Samsung smartphones. Apple uses Intel XMM 7360 modems in all iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models A1778 and A1784, i.e. also those sold in Romania, Qualcomm MDM 9645M modems being used in the GSM/CDMA versions with model A1660 and A1661.
