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Graybeard7

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 27, 2021
17
24
Indianapolis, IN
I'm aware 5g speeds can vary depending on location. Fortunately T Mobile has great 5g coverage in my city. I was extremely pleased to see what the Mini 6 was able to pull down from my living room. 5G is not all hype IMHO.
IMG_0027.PNG
 
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jdb8167

macrumors 601
Nov 17, 2008
4,859
4,599
Yeah. I usually get around 600-650 Mbps on T-Mobile 5G. Faster than my Xfinity cable connection.
 

taneff

macrumors 6502
Nov 1, 2019
346
453
I wonder if the Mini 6 has the new Qualcomm modem or the one from the iPhone 12 line. I guess the latter. But I always get way higher speeds on my iPad mini 6 as to my iPhone 12 mini. Maybe it is the antennas.

I was in a city in my home country, we don't have that good 5G coverage yet. Mini 6 got 450-500 most of the time when my iPhone 12 Mini got 200-350 at the same time.

I need to put the Mini 6 through a test while traveling through countryside with annoyingly bad reception but from first impressions it has very good reception.
 
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dcpmark

macrumors 65816
Oct 20, 2009
1,036
834
Yikes….here in LA the best I’ve seen so far is 150 down/45 up both my Mini 6 and my iPhone 13 Mini on Verizon.
 

jdb8167

macrumors 601
Nov 17, 2008
4,859
4,599
Yikes….here in LA the best I’ve seen so far is 150 down/45 up both my Mini 6 and my iPhone 13 Mini on Verizon.
Verizon is behind on sub 6GHz bands but they are starting to catch up. For whatever reason--probably bragging rights--Verizon focused on mmWave antennas instead the more practical sub6 bands. As most people know, mmWave isn't very practical for most users because of its short distance and low ability to penetrate walls and other obstructions.
 
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JPack

macrumors G5
Mar 27, 2017
13,555
26,191
I wonder if the Mini 6 has the new Qualcomm modem or the one from the iPhone 12 line. I guess the latter. But I always get way higher speeds on my iPad mini 6 as to my iPhone 12 mini. Maybe it is the antennas.

I was in a city in my home country, we don't have that good 5G coverage yet. Mini 6 got 450-500 most of the time when my iPhone 12 Mini got 200-350 at the same time.

I need to put the Mini 6 through a test while traveling through countryside with annoyingly bad reception but from first impressions it has very good reception.
It uses X60, same modem as iPhone 13.
 
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taneff

macrumors 6502
Nov 1, 2019
346
453
Ah ok thx. That is indeed unexpected. Thought they would use the old one. Very nice!
 

sparksd

macrumors G4
Jun 7, 2015
10,001
34,333
Seattle WA
Tried the 5G for the first time on my new Mini 6 with T-Mobile - 755Mbps down, 86Mbps up. Seattle.

Cautionary note: I used ookla's Speedtest app for this and it used 1GB of cellular data for it.

Edit: The Speedtest data was not charged against my T-Mobile usage - see posts below for details.
 
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jdb8167

macrumors 601
Nov 17, 2008
4,859
4,599
Tried the 5G for the first time on my new Mini 6 with T-Mobile - 755Mbps down, 86Mbps up. Seattle.

Cautionary note: I used ookla's Speedtest app for this and it used 1GB of cellular data for it.
It looks like T-Mobile doesn’t count that test data against your limits if you connect to the T-Mobile test site. I’m not aware of all possible situations but I’ve run the Ookla app against the T-Mobile site a few times with the pre-paid 5 GB plan and while the Cellular settings page says I’ve used 3.2 GBs the actual account says I’ve only used 600 MBs.
 

sparksd

macrumors G4
Jun 7, 2015
10,001
34,333
Seattle WA
It looks like T-Mobile doesn’t count that test data against your limits if you connect to the T-Mobile test site. I’m not aware of all possible situations but I’ve run the Ookla app against the T-Mobile site a few times with the pre-paid 5 GB plan and while the Cellular settings page says I’ve used 3.2 GBs the actual account says I’ve only used 600 MBs.

Do you have a link? I thought that T-Mobile didn't count the data and they recommend downloading the Ookla app but they did count it with the app.

https://www.t-mobile.com/support/plans-features/data-speeds#speedtest
 

sparksd

macrumors G4
Jun 7, 2015
10,001
34,333
Seattle WA
No link. The only evidence I have is the Settings app.

View attachment 1855138

Yeah, it shows up as 1GB cell data used but when I open account settings and look, it clearly is not in the data usage applied to the current month. Bottom line - no charge for using the app. Thanks for the heads-up on this. (I edited my original post to note this.)
 
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