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Comment by LyndsySimon | Hacker News Reader

At some point, does it really matter?

Maybe I'm still in the honeymoon phase with my iPhone X, but I've had it for a few months now. The last iPhone I owned was a 4S, and I've been on Android ever since. I was very happy with Samsung's Galaxy line from the S4 Active to the S7 Edge, but the Edge simultaneously slowed to a crawl and lost at least half its battery life after 18 months. It was to the point that I had to charge it every time I was sitting down.

The iPhone X has been great. The interface is fast and gets out of the way, and Siri is actually starting to become useful for more than a parlor trick.

FWIW, I'm writing this from a bluffline overlooking a lake. My MBP is tethered to my iPhone, and I'm getting a consistent 50Mbps. I don't know that additional download speed would be useful to me at the moment.

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I feel exactly the same. The only smartphones I ever owned were Android (and a single Windows phone), but my experience with the S6 was the same as with your S7 - and the loss of the headphone jack didn't matter to me, since the one in my S6 ceased to work consistently about a month after my warranty ended. The X feels like a device at the cutting edge, FaceID is the closest I feel to "intuitive computing" outside mixed reality devices - there is almost no tangible barrier between you and the connected digital environment. But it's also stable, fast, and as you said "out of the way." I miss some aspects of Android's action tray and notifications, but have been far more impressed by the ways iOS is leaps and bounds ahead as a general daily user experience. And I say all this as a .NET developer who daily drives Windows on my desktop and laptop!

I suppose that was a bit off the subject at hand, but I was really surprised at how much better the iPhone experience feels than Android. More on topic, I really don't think this kind of crowing over technical details will help the platform any more than flexing about camera megapixel resolution or processor clock speed does. Android needs to make strides in its user experience as a daily computing device to replace iOS for me now, and I also haven't noticed any issues with the speed of the web. I suspect if there were any differences, the rest of the experience would make them unnoticeable to me.

I have to agree. My own anecdote is upgrading from an iPhone 6s to an iPhone X. At no point was the 'Internet Speed' a consideration on my purchase decision.

For me, I accept I have to invest every N years in order for my hardware to match the ever-increasing demands software places on it. It's a tax I am willing to pay for a device that has become so ingrained in my lifestyle.

I suppose, for me at least, the network speeds are in a similar category to processor speeds for normal, every day use. Would an extra 10-20% download bandwidth be appreciated? Would an i9 running at 2.9GHz help me transpile and package my JavaScript quicker? Sure. But it's way down my priority list in terms of real-life productivity and time saving.

> I suppose, for me at least, the network speeds are in a similar category to processor speeds for normal, every day use. Would an extra 10-20% download bandwidth be appreciated? Would an i9 running at 2.9GHz help me transpile and package my JavaScript quicker? Sure. But it's way down my priority list in terms of real-life productivity and time saving.

Definitely. Furthermore, I typically don't even care about things going fast. I want things to "not be slow". Which, typically I guess the distinction is that I don't mind expected slow things being slow. Ie, if I have to run integration tests I expect it to take 30s. If I got a (somehow) faster SSD and CPU could it take 20s? Maybe, and sure that would be great.. but .. meh. It just doesn't matter to me.

However the things that should be instant, that I don't like to be slow need to remain so under all conditions. In my experience, RAM is the biggest culprit for causing simple things to be slow. If I open one to many browser tabs, suddenly I have no RAM and my UX goes down significantly.

So RAM ranks far, far higher on my list than CPU. CPU rarely has a big affect on my these days, and unless I switch to a workload where I'm heavily concerned with shaving time off of hour+ compiles (video editing/etc), then I just don't care. But RAM, oh boy do I love RAM.

In my opinion, no. I'm on the AT&T "Unlimited Choice" plan, which is artificially capped at 3mbps and it's been totally fine for me. I can do everything I want to - check email, browse the web, check Twitter, use maps, stream music and podcasts, etc. Also, the bandwidth cap helps me avoid hitting the 22GB monthly transfer cap and getting throttled to the very noticeably terrible 128Kbps.

In an ideal world I wouldn't have to worry about bandwidth or transfer caps, but I mention this to provide my experience that for me 3mbps is plenty. Some people might need more, but I think that once you get up above 20-30mbps, most people wouldn't notice or care about the difference.

I'm on a T-mobile unlimited plan and I can use 5Gb per day after which I have to start spamming the T-mobile app if I want to use more.

Its kind of a trap, once you get unlimited data and high speeds you start to take it for granted. Nothing is good enough anymore. But when you get abroad on holiday you learn how the rest of the world lives and know that you should be grateful.

It might just be that roaming is being actively throttled.

I get great speeds in the UK, I get mediocre speeds in the EU, I get terrible speeds in the USA. All with the same handset and (SIM) carrier.

> I'm on a T-mobile unlimited plan and I can use 5Gb per day after which I have to start spamming the T-mobile app if I want to use more.

One plan? Or Simple Choice.

I've had no problem pulling ISO's down in the evening to my phone (like 15GB overnight) on SC unlimited with tmo. It's not something I make a habit of but I've found out deprioritization only really affects me in a few busy places in manhattan and around international airports. (and this only kicks in after 50GB of usage or so in a month which is not typical)

I'd be more interested in worst-case performance. If the Samsung and Google devices maintain a similar performance advantage with very marginal signal strength, it could frequently make the difference between a useable connection and no connection at all. I suspect not.

> does it really matter?

Yes and no.

> Ookla’s data ... iPhone X ... 31.5 Mbps ... 25.1 Mbps.

> The Galaxy S9+, ... 38.2 Mbps on Verizon and 34.2 Mbps on Sprint.

If you buy a phone for this feature, then I suppose it would matter. But IRL no one cares about these performance numbers until/unless they're separated by an order of magnitude.

> I don't know that additional download speed would be useful to me at the moment.

Until someone comes up with clever new applications to consume this bandwidth, I agree: it's just not useful.

I really prefer android and I like the Snapdragon phones. Clearly, AAPL made a smart bet in dual-sourcing the modems. People do not buy iPhones because they expect superior throughput. Device performance/latency likely matters much more than network performance.

You're assuming something about the distribution of speeds. If they're mostly the same but some are significantly and unusably worse, that is different from the speeds being mostly slightly lower.

I have an X on tmobile and it's abjectly terrible. I had a 6S+ before it. In the same location, on the same network, it will drop signal or become unusable and gets lower reception almost everywhere.

This is nearly as bad as the issues reported with the essential phone, honestly. It's a night and day difference you can compare side by side if you have two devices.

With good signal it's fine, and the speeds are plenty fast. I have no complaints about battery life. It's entirely when the signal is marginal that it's garbage.

I've considered selling it and buying the verizon or unlocked qualcomm model multiple times.

My experience with the X is very different. It's entirely possible you're experiencing duff hardware. Have you approached Apple with your concerns? Remember you may have consumer rights depending on your location...

Yup, and it's "working as normal". This poor reception is shared by friends who have the intel X

When signal is poor it's likely locking to the band 12 layer (700mhz) which is only 5mhz x 5mhz worth of bandwidth. It congests easier than band4 which is typically 20x20. For whatever reason iphones seem to be a bit stickier to this band, probably due to weaker antennas or firmware that kicks it off the beefier bands faster.

There's something to this theory, as switching airplane mode off and on usually results in a usable connection. This is still completely unacceptable behavior though, and i haven't been able to replicate it on multiple other devices i have handy(including other iphones, including ones with band 12 support)

My experience with the SE has been that it goes to band 12 first or if its moving fast within a cell. Then it ‘settles’ into band 4 or 2 on tmobile after about a minute.

My old modem phone I purposefully got without band 12 because it saturates so easy, now I just lock bands and speedtest until I find most reliable with the current.

Surely you can't really make a judgement until you have used the new phone for 18 months, too?

Same here. I was on Nexus for the longest time and iPhone X was first iPhone since the first one back in 2008. No issue with speed at all. I use it to tether to my MacBook quite often and speed been reliable for me.

Pretty sure if I paid $1000 for a phone I would want it to be the fastest.

You're in luck. There are plenty of Android phones that cost over $1,000 just waiting for you.

Ah, but that's just it - I didn't pay $1000 for it. I pay monthly installments over two years, which is how long I expect to have the phone. At the end of the two years I'll sell the iPhone X for ~$400 I expect and upgrade to whatever is newest at the time.

I consider it more of a "self-administered lease" than a purchase. My total cost for the device will end up being about $600 over two years, or $25 / month.

In which metric? Don't think you get the fastest in all metrics for that low a sum. Especially with all the other top-in-class features that also matter to people.

Yeah you're right. It's hard to put a value on these things especially when people value things in different ways. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Apple makes quite the margin on the iphone x.

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