Definitive Qualcomm (A1660/A1661) v. Intel (A1778/A1784) iPhone 7/7 Plus Thread

[cc999]

I place a very high priority on reception / signal quality so I decided to run some tests on two identical 128gb iPhone 7's to see which is better in my environment (planning to return whichever one is worse). One Verizon / qualcomm model purchased from Apple store (model a1660), and another purchased from an ATT store with the intel modem (a1778). The phones are set up identically as new, and both have 10.0.2. Reset network settings on both phones and used the speed test app for LTE speed tests. All tests run on AT&T's network. I only kept tests where the speed test app connected to the same server/location. I also did a field test prior to each run. Averages below are based on 10 total runs.

Bottom line is I found a significant difference - average downloads of 22 vs 13 mbps down and 3 vs 1 mbps upload speed (qualcomm was the winner). Also lots of variability for the intel modem during the tests, where the qualcomm modem was more steady through each speed test run. And did a bunch of simultaneous page loads of web pages (on LTE). There was little difference in page load speeds.....maybe a very slight advantage to qualcomm. Lastly, after running all these tests I compared battery life. I also set the phones next to each other and did a 2 hour call between them to see if an LTE call used more battery on one of the models. I was careful to make sure the phones were set and charged identically, and ran the same amount of tests / screen brightness on each phone. Battery life at the end of the tests was as follows: Qualcomm - 75% remaining. Intel - 61% remaining. I did not calibrate both batteries beforehand FWIW.

Attached is a txt file with my test data. Hope this is useful to people. I fully realize this is just one data point with only two phones, and I understand there's a need for a more scientific and comprehensive test with many more phones and locations to know for sure. But I thought I'd share what I found in case anyone finds it useful since I rarely if ever contribute to these forums, but frequently get useful info from others' posts.

Thank you! This is exactly what I have experienced. You did a great job on this. Bottom line is there are people with the Intel modems that will refuse to see the light. To them I say enjoy the phone. When I pay 1000 dollars for a phone I want the best, thats why I returned the ATT version (Intel) and got the Verizon (Qualcomm) version. The reception issue was a bonus as I was interested in getting the true world phone that supports both GSM and CDMA.
The simple question you have to ask yourself, if I am paying 1000 dollars fo the phone why would I not want the one that supports ALL carriers and as a bonus you get a modem that has been around for years and is proven to be a reliable chip.

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[eclipxe]

Thank you! This is exactly what I have experienced. You did a great job on this. Bottom line is there are people with the Intel modems that will refuse to see the light. To them I say enjoy the phone. When I pay 1000 dollars for a phone I want the best, thats why I returned the ATT version (Intel) and got the Verizon (Qualcomm) version. The reception issue was a bonus as I was interested in getting the true world phone that supports both GSM and CDMA.
The simple question you have to ask yourself, if I am paying 1000 dollars fo the phone why would I not want the one that supports ALL carriers and as a bonus you get a modem that has been around for years and is proven to be a reliable chip.

CC

My tests purely focused on battery life and Intel consistently showed 1-2 hrs more usage and comparable speeds side by side. It's not about seeing the light, it's simply data.

 

[Elisha]

10.1 Beta 3 updated the modem fw so who know what improvements were made.

 

[blackberrycubed]

Qualcomm >>>>>>>>>>> Intel modem.

 

[joelp22]

My tests purely focused on battery life and Intel consistently showed 1-2 hrs more usage and comparable speeds side by side. It's not about seeing the light, it's simply data.

Hey Eclipxe -

Actually your tests showing the intel modem was more battery efficient were what prompted me to do my own tests. Clearly there are a lot of factors at play and I don't know nearly enough about the topic to hypothesize why we got opposite results. FWIW i repeated my test today after calibrating the batteries on both phones and got essentially the same results. In my case the qualcomm seems to be significantly better both for data upload / download speed and battery life. Maybe the intel handset I got was a lemon....who knows.

I suspect we'll see more on this....hopefully Annandtech or someone similar will do some more scientific comparisons with a bigger sample size.

 

[jtwlbz]

Hey Eclipxe -

Actually your tests showing the intel modem was more battery efficient were what prompted me to do my own tests. Clearly there are a lot of factors at play and I don't know nearly enough about the topic to hypothesize why we got opposite results. FWIW i repeated my test today after calibrating the batteries on both phones and got essentially the same results. In my case the qualcomm seems to be significantly better both for data upload / download speed and battery life. Maybe the intel handset I got was a lemon....who knows.

I suspect we'll see more on this....hopefully Annandtech or someone similar will do some more scientific comparisons with a bigger sample size.

How much battery in qualcomm after calibration?

 

[deano1972]

Hey Eclipxe -

Actually your tests showing the intel modem was more battery efficient were what prompted me to do my own tests. Clearly there are a lot of factors at play and I don't know nearly enough about the topic to hypothesize why we got opposite results. FWIW i repeated my test today after calibrating the batteries on both phones and got essentially the same results. In my case the qualcomm seems to be significantly better both for data upload / download speed and battery life. Maybe the intel handset I got was a lemon....who knows.

I suspect we'll see more on this....hopefully Annandtech or someone similar will do some more scientific comparisons with a bigger sample size.

I'm not surprised at all that you both got different results. Ive had 2 iPhone 7's here set up the same in settings, both intel chips (Europe) yet battery drain is very different on both of them.

 

[cc999]

My tests purely focused on battery life and Intel consistently showed 1-2 hrs more usage and comparable speeds side by side. It's not about seeing the light, it's simply data.

My test agree with Joel. Again I ask why the heck would you spend the same amount of money on a phone that does not support both GSM/CDMA. Proven 100-150 more when you are ready to sell an upgrade. If you are happy with the Intel God bless you. My tests (full week with each unit) agree with Joel.

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[eclipxe]

My test agree with Joel. Again I ask why the heck would you spend the same amount of money on a phone that does not support both GSM/CDMA. Proven 100-150 more when you are ready to sell an upgrade. If you are happy with the Intel God bless you. My tests (full week with each unit) agree with Joel.

CC

Better battery life is worth $100-$150 in a year or two. Full stop

 

[cc999]

Better battery life is worth $100-$150 in a year or two. Full stop

Your problem is the better battery life is with the Qualcomm! Case closed. Enjoy your Intel GSM only phone....

CC

 

[eclipxe]

Your problem is the better battery life is with the Qualcomm! Case closed. Enjoy your Intel GSM only phone....

CC

After several days of tests in my area, Intel showed better battery life. Not sure why this is a big deal for you. I wanted to really like the Qualcomm because of the option to go CDMA and resale value, which I will give you as benefits. But real world data for my usage convinced me otherwise.

If QC works better for you then great! For me Intel vs QC was a no brainer with 10+ hrs battery usage coming easily. QC was 8-9hr. Maybe there were other differences like different CPU bins but either way Intel won for me.

 

[Elisha]

Why is having a CDMA modem such a big deal? Do you guys want TDMA and Analog too?
As for the perceived resale value, you guys are overstating it!
How bad is Verizon and Sprint coverage that you need to fallback to CDMA?
I can't tell you the last time my carrier fell back to Edge or GPRS!

 

[eclipxe]

Why is having a CDMA modem such a big deal? Do you guys want TDMA and Analog too?
As for the perceived resale value, you guys are overstating it!
How bad is Verizon and Sprint coverage that you need to fallback to CDMA?
I can't tell you the last time my carrier fell back to Edge or GPRS!

And if you're on TMobile or ATT you will never roam to CDMA so it doesn't buy you a single thing.

 

[gadgetfreaky]

Why is having a CDMA modem such a big deal? Do you guys want TDMA and Analog too?
As for the perceived resale value, you guys are overstating it!
How bad is Verizon and Sprint coverage that you need to fallback to CDMA?
I can't tell you the last time my carrier fell back to Edge or GPRS!

it's not just that is has more air interfaces and works on the other 2 carriers, it's that it is a better chip design, faster and theoretically should have better battery life due to chip efficiencies. won't know for sure until some heavy duty sites test it out

 

[Elisha]

it's not just that is has more air interfaces and works on the other 2 carriers, it's that it is a better chip design, faster and theoretically should have better battery life due to chip efficiencies. won't know for sure until some heavy duty sites test it out

The more a chip has to do, the less efficient it is at any one thing.
Qualcomm's modem is a 20nm chip. Not sure about the Intel one. However I can't see Intel not bringing its A game to the best selling device out there if it ever wants to gain a foothold in the mobile segment.
Any why does everyone just assume Qualcomm is better? Their only benefit is that they own a bunch of CDMA patents (an obsolete technology).

 

[Jetro]

We need analog and TDMA They should make an iPhone with optional antenna attachment.

 

[Thor_1]

This is chipgate all over again, is that even mentioned anymore?

 

[thadoggfather]

This is chipgate all over again, is that even mentioned anymore?

This matters less than chip gate by a substantial margin in my opinion.

A10 is just manufactured by tsmc. Though Samsung has made CPUs in the past I think it was a solid run of tsmc before Samsung back in the mix.

I'm glad my SE appears to be tsmc (at least battery life is fantastic )

 

[gadgetfreaky]

The more a chip has to do, the less efficient it is at any one thing.
Qualcomm's modem is a 20nm chip. Not sure about the Intel one. However I can't see Intel not bringing its A game to the best selling device out there if it ever wants to gain a foothold in the mobile segment.
Any why does everyone just assume Qualcomm is better? Their only benefit is that they own a bunch of CDMA patents (an obsolete technology).

That is a broad generalization - it can be true in some cases but isn't necessarily so.

 

[blackberrycubed]

After several days of tests in my area, Intel showed better battery life. Not sure why this is a big deal for you. I wanted to really like the Qualcomm because of the option to go CDMA and resale value, which I will give you as benefits. But real world data for my usage convinced me otherwise.

If QC works better for you then great! For me Intel vs QC was a no brainer with 10+ hrs battery usage coming easily. QC was 8-9hr. Maybe there were other differences like different CPU bins but either way Intel won for me.

I see, making yourself feel better about a bad decision to keep the inferior chip phone. whatever lets you sleep better at night.

 

[eclipxe]

I see, making yourself feel better about a bad decision to keep the inferior chip phone. whatever lets you sleep better at night.

Nah. I would have felt bad if I convinced myself to keep the QC because of "resale value" when the data told me differently. But to each their own.

 

[Thor_1]

I see, making yourself feel better about a bad decision to keep the inferior chip phone. whatever lets you sleep better at night.

Funny, some people have better results with Intel, others have better results with Qualcomm. Funny how that is. Maybe there is no difference or their is a perceived difference or maybe one is better. End the end there is no real way to tell outside of a lab.

If they get better results with their Intel chip, good for them. Why insult them? Make you feel better? No one cares about your opinion. Comments like yours are not helpful to anyone.

I personally get better coverage at work with my t mobile phone. Before I got 1 bar of LTE to E. Now I get 2-3 of LTE and no E. But I know, just justifying a poor decision.

 

[SethBoy]

To make things more complex, the A1778/A1784 in my country comes with the regulatory labels (that row of logos laser-etched below “iPhone” on the back of the phone) while the A1660/A1661 devices don’t. That makes me want to get the A1660/A1661 regardless of the differences between the network compatibilities. The fact that the Qualcomm modem on the A1660/A1661 is supposedly better is icing on cake.

 

[BlueGoldAce]

I always find the comments on these post funny.

How do people get so defensive and aggressive over phones, let alone the same exact phones? People seem to invest their identities into these phones.

Anyway, I have T-mobile and that means intel. Love the phone. I have had Qualcomm and exynos based modems in the past. This performs equal or better as far as I can tel.

Yet...I am not actively seeking data to verify or disprove this.

My phone "just works", and as such I move on and enjoy my life. There are more important things than the modem in your iPhone. Like the clear superiority of Nvidia GPUs to AMD GPUs, haha (joking...kind of.... ).

 

[cc999]

That is a broad generalization - it can be true in some cases but isn't necessarily so.

Also ask yourself this, why did Apple this year choose to use different modem chips in the ATT/TMobile
phones? The 6S all the phones had the Qualcomm. Its all about profit, they put the cheaper chip where they could get away with it.

CC