Apple has been working on its custom C1 modem for years, and it recently showcased the chip in its latest iPhone 16e. It was previously reported that the company’s modem is capable but not as much as Qualcomm’s. However, it does have an edge when it comes to power efficiency, which gives the iPhone 16e a battery boost. It is now being reported that Apple’s C1 modem has outperformed Qualcomm modems in several benchmarks.
Apple’s C1 modem inside the iPhone 16e outperforms the Qualcomm modem in the iPhone 16
As mentioned, Apple has spent years perfecting its modem, and while it is only the beginning, the company will introduce major performance gains in future iterations of the chip. A new study reveals that Apple’s C1 modem beats Qualcomm in most benchmarks. The study compares the C1 modem in the iPhone 16e to Qualcomm-made modems in the iPhone 16, and the results are quite surprising.
Ookla tracked the performance of the three best carriers in the United States with three different tiers, which include low, medium, and high-performance experience. The stats show how the iPhone 16e’s C1 modem performed against the iPhone 16 with a Qualcomm modem. It can be seen that the C1 modem performs better in the 10th percentile when the download speeds are lower than the Qualcomm modem’s. In the medium tier, the performance of both chips is neck and neck, but Apple takes the lead. In the 90th percentile or the third tier, the iPhone 16 beats the C1 chip by quite a margin. The iPhone 16 with a Qualcomm modem had better download speeds across AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
While the results are surprising at first glance, given that the C1 modem is Apple’s entry into the modem business, Ookla says that the numbers should not matter to users.
Performance at the lowest 10th percentile often provides a more accurate reflection of the overall quality of experience (QoE) than the fastest 90th percentile, which can be skewed by deployments in mmWave-covered locations and is subject to declining marginal returns.
The new iPhone 16e performed better on AT&T and Verizon, while the iPhone 16 took the lead with T-Mobile. In terms of upload speeds, the iPhone 16e performed better across all major carriers, especially AT&T and Verizon, with almost double the upload speed compared to the iPhone 16. We will share more tests related to the performance of the C1 modem, so be sure to stick around.