The top smartphones of 2025 place far greater emphasis on Wi‑Fi performance than in previous years. After several product cycles that prioritized cellular capabilities, manufacturers are now shifting attention toward wireless performance inside homes, offices, and public spaces. Apple’s introduction of its first in‑house networking chip, the N1, in the iPhone 17 family arrives as Android flagships increasingly support Wi‑Fi 7 and the 6 GHz band. As device makers chase faster speeds and more consistent connectivity, strong Wi‑Fi hardware is becoming as crucial as modem improvements.
To compare the N1 with the Broadcom chipset used in the iPhone 16 family — and with recent Android flagships using Qualcomm, MediaTek, or Broadcom Wi‑Fi platforms — Speedtest Intelligence data from the first six weeks after the iPhone 17’s launch provides a clear view. Ookla’s research shows real‑world performance improvements by a wide margin, even though the N1’s published Wi‑Fi specifications appear only modestly changed.
Apple’s N1: focused on integration and consistent performance
The N1 represents another step in Apple’s long effort to bring more of the iPhone’s wireless systems under its own design and control. Moving away from Broadcom gives Apple greater influence over pricing, supply stability, and long‑term product planning. It also creates a radio platform that can be applied across Macs, iPads, Apple Watch, and home devices.
Technically, the N1 unifies Wi‑Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread on a single chip. Aside from Bluetooth moving from 5.3 to 6, the N1’s advertised Wi‑Fi capabilities look similar to the Broadcom chipset used in the iPhone 16. Apple says the closer hardware and software integration improves features like AirDrop and Personal Hotspot, but the raw Wi‑Fi specifications show only small changes on paper.
That similarity means the N1 is limited to a 160 MHz channel width and does not support 320 MHz channels available with Wi‑Fi 7. Those wider channels give some Qualcomm‑ and MediaTek‑based Android flagships higher theoretical peak speeds when paired with compatible routers.
In regions such as the United States — where the full 6 GHz band is available — this 160 MHz cap could restrict absolute peak throughput under ideal, controlled conditions. Markets like the EU and the UK, which permit only a portion of the 6 GHz band, still provide at least one 320 MHz channel in some deployments. On paper, these differences can make the iPhone 17 appear disadvantaged against Android phones that can use wider channels.
Real‑world testing paints a different picture
Despite similar published specs, the iPhone 17 family outperforms the iPhone 16 family across nearly every metric. Speedtest Intelligence data shows clear improvements in download speed, upload speed, and performance stability.
To avoid skewed comparisons caused by early adopters or market imbalances, the analysis matched countries with samples for both device families. Major markets including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, India, and others all showed the same result: the iPhone 17 delivered faster Wi‑Fi speeds than the iPhone 16. This trend held in very high‑speed markets such as France and in markets closer to the global average.
At the 10th percentile, median, and 90th percentile, the iPhone 17 posted stronger results. The global median download speed reached 329.56 Mbps — roughly 40% higher than the iPhone 16’s 236.46 Mbps. Upload speeds rose from 73.68 Mbps to 103.26 Mbps.
The biggest gains appeared at the lower end of the performance distribution. At the 10th percentile, iPhone 17 speeds were more than 60% higher than iPhone 16 speeds, while at the 90th percentile the uplift was just over 20%. This suggests the N1 is tuned to deliver smoother performance in more challenging or congested environments, improving the everyday experience where interference, distance from the access point, or network contention matter more than peak throughput. That mirrors prior observations from Apple’s in‑house C1 modem, which also raised the low end of cellular performance.
In North America, where 6 GHz access is more common, the iPhone 17 reached a median download speed of 416.14 Mbps, up from 323.69 Mbps on the iPhone 16. At the country level, Singapore and France recorded the highest iPhone 17 speeds, both exceeding 600 Mbps, helped by widespread multi‑gigabit fiber connections.
The lack of 320 MHz support isn’t yet a practical handicap
Despite not supporting 320 MHz channels, the N1 keeps the iPhone 17 competitive across regions and produced the highest global 10th percentile download speed (56.08 Mbps), underlining its ability to handle imperfect Wi‑Fi conditions.
In theory, devices that support 320 MHz channels should show advantages in places like North America. In practice, however, very few users currently have 320 MHz‑capable routers. Wi‑Fi 7 access points are still being adopted, and most users remain on older routers. With limited router adoption, the theoretical advantage of wider channels does not appear prominently in aggregated metrics.
The iPhone 17 achieving top speeds in North America despite the narrower channel support highlights this reality. Over time, as Wi‑Fi 7 routers and broader 6 GHz deployments become more common, Android devices with 320 MHz support may gain a clearer edge in peak throughput. Today, however, the ecosystem is not mature enough for that advantage to be widespread.
How Android flagships compare
Google Pixel 10 Pro
The Pixel 10 Pro delivered strong results, posting the highest global median download speed in the study at 335.33 Mbps, slightly ahead of the iPhone 17. The device likely continues Google’s use of Broadcom Wi‑Fi silicon found in previous Pixel generations. In North America, where many Chinese Android brands have a smaller market share, the Pixel 10 Pro also produced the strongest median and 90th percentile upload speeds.
Samsung Galaxy S25 family
Samsung’s Galaxy S25 line uses Qualcomm’s FastConnect 7900 through the Snapdragon 8 Elite platform. It ranked in the upper mid‑range for most performance measures and stood out for latency: in North America, Europe, and the Gulf region it posted the lowest best‑case response times — 6 ms, 7 ms, and 9 ms respectively. It also led median multi‑server latency in Europe and topped 90th percentile uploads in the Gulf.
Xiaomi 15T Pro leads on uploads
Upload performance produced a different leaderboard from downloads. In Europe and Northeast Asia, where Xiaomi has a strong user base, the Xiaomi 15T Pro delivered the fastest upload speeds across percentiles. The device uses MediaTek Wi‑Fi silicon integrated in the Dimensity 9400 (+) platform.
In France — a market notable for symmetric multi‑gigabit fiber — the 15T Pro was the only tested device to exceed 100 Mbps at the 10th percentile, 500 Mbps at the median, and 1,000 Mbps at the 90th percentile. It also posted the lowest global multi‑server latency at the median (15 ms) and the 90th percentile (42 ms).
Huawei Pura 80: strong where 6 GHz isn’t available
The Huawei Pura 80 series is built on what Huawei describes as a “self‑developed chip‑level collaboration” for Wi‑Fi 7, which likely means continued use of HiSilicon Wi‑Fi silicon. If so, Huawei and Apple are the main major brands currently relying on in‑house Wi‑Fi solutions in their flagships.
The Pura 80’s main limitation is the absence of 6 GHz support; many versions sold domestically and abroad omit the band. That omission restricts performance in markets where 6 GHz is available, particularly in crowded environments where the newer spectrum provides cleaner and faster connections.
The limitation shows most clearly at the high end: in Southeast Asia the Pura 80 posted 90th percentile download speeds of 541.33 Mbps — more than 39% lower than the Oppo Find X8 Pro, which led the region. It also trailed at the median. Still, the Pura 80 performed well on non‑6 GHz networks: on Wi‑Fi 6 access points without 6 GHz, it delivered the second‑fastest 90th percentile upload speed (603.61 Mbps) in Southeast Asia.
Wi‑Fi 7 and 6 GHz deliver clear gains, but adoption is uneven
Across all devices studied, newer Wi‑Fi standards produced meaningful improvements in everyday use. Features such as multi‑link operation (MLO) allow devices to use multiple bands simultaneously, similar to carrier aggregation in cellular networks. On supported access points, these features deliver substantial benefits.
In this analysis, Wi‑Fi 7 nearly doubled median download speeds compared with Wi‑Fi 6 on the same Android devices, with uplifts ranging from 74% to 108%. The transition from Wi‑Fi 5 to Wi‑Fi 6 produced similar gains of 72% to 123%. Devices operating on 6 GHz networks also experienced at least 77% faster median downloads than devices on 5 GHz.
However, the distribution of these gains is uneven. In North America, more than 20% of Speedtest samples from Galaxy S25 devices came from the 6 GHz band. In Europe and Northeast Asia the share was roughly 5%, and in the Gulf region only about 1.7%. These figures indicate that many of the benefits tied to Wi‑Fi 7 and 6 GHz will take time to reach users worldwide as router and AP adoption increases.
(Photo by Dreamlike Street)