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How the iPhone 12 Fits Into the New 5G World

5G at the Apple event was amazing, but is it worth the extra battery drain? Yes! A new world is opening-up

Photo by Aaditya Ailawadhi on Unsplash

October 2020 was when “5G just got real” according to Hans Vestberg at the iPhone 12 launch event. What did that mean?

• Peak download speeds of 4Gbps, and that was just the start!.
• Peak upload speeds of 200Mbps, so that was great too.
• Latency was so low that communications were effectively real-time.
• Post-pandemic, thousands of people could use their phones at busy airports or a packed stadium, and it wouldn’t be a problem.

Something called, Ultra-Wideband would bring real 5G to 60 cities by the end of 2020. It used something called millimeter wave spectrum.

Less was said about a 5G Nationwide network separate from the 5G Ultra Wideband network, but it would be available to 200 million people across 1800 cities and towns. Oddly no claims were made about it, but for the record, they were talking about mid-band.

People got their hands on iPhone 12s and iPhone 12 Pros in late October, crossing their fingers that they had 5G coverage. Did the hype deliver? It was hard to tell. PCmag…