There's been talk the last couple days about the fact that there really isn't anywhere in the States to take advantage of the blazing 7.2Mbps downlink connection supported by the
iPhone 3GS -- except for one great hope, one diamond in the rough that could become a shining destination for 3GS owners the world over. That destination would be Chicago, where AT&T
fired up 7.2Mbps trials late last year, and the hope was that they might be letting lay folk (like us) in on the action in time for the 3GS release. Well, we've been running side-by-side tests today, and the short answer is that we're clearly not accessing 7.2 -- granted, the 3GS is getting marginally faster speeds both up and down, but we figure this can easily be attributed to the new model's faster processor because a doubling of the downlink pipe simply doesn't account for a 100kbps bump in speed (latency was all over the map on both phones, for the record). If you're holding out on upgrading from a 3G to a 3GS, go ahead and crack a smile -- because for now, anyway, this is one spec bump that means precisely zilch in the real world.
posted Jun 20th 2009 10:19AM
It's exactly 927 milliseconds faster. (Not including transfer speed) :D
Exactly!! The latency is by far much better, instead of taking one second for a packet to get from point A to point B it takes 1/10th.
Latency was all over the map in our testing on both devices - concentrate on the uplink and downlink.
Yeah. Did you notice the download test was only 130kb? I wonder how quickly a larger file would transfer.
@theone3: It actually runs a battery of six tests of varying download sizes.
Alright, how many people want to move to Chicago with me?
Let's start a revolution people, come on!
Give me 7.2Mbps or give me...
...
It comes down to one thing - cheap a$$e$. The reason it's not faster is because it's still the same speed *wireline* pipe between the same number of people, or maybe even more. They can upgrade the wireless equipment to 7.2 meg all they want, but as I have said before, until they put more (or faster) wired connections to the towers, you won't notice an increase. AT&T doesn't want to spend more money putting T1's or T3's to these towers, that is why they introduced the "automatic Wi-Fi connection" stuff, so you spend more of your time on cheaper (or free for AT &T if you are connected to your Wi-Fi at home) shared DSL or cable lines as opposed to having to run more (or faster) data connections to the towers. God forbid AT&T have to spend more money on infrastructure to support the mobile data users that pay $30 a month for usage - the same (or more) than they pay at home for UNLIMITED usage for MULTIPLE devices.
Shame about the latency. Did you do any tests right next to a tower? The UK government states that it drops off very quickly and that is why we will have to pay a 50p a month cable tax :(
Did none of you read the bit that says "latency was all over the map on both phones, for the record" ?
Are you F****** kidding me? I am on Long Island (Nassau County, NY) and I see a HUGE difference in 3G vs. 3G S speeds here. I have about 2-3 times faster on the 3G S than on the 3G.
Paul A. Chapel: I don't think you really have any idea what you are talking about. 4GB isn't all that much. My 4 year old laptop has that much. And upgrading a pc every couple of months? I haven't upgraded my desktop in a while and it still will play every new game on the market at medium-high settings.
yaw...yay...
@Chris T: That's just the placebo effect kicking in...
140ms ping is good enough for tethered gaming. Hell, I played Halo 3 tethered to a Blackberry on Verizon back in '07 when my campus still didn't have internet capable of gaming. It actually worked well enough to be playable in small games. Setup was easy enough, tether Blackberry over USB, then bridge USB and Ethernet, plug the Xbox into laptop while set to DHCP, good to go.
It's not a placebo effect, it's that the faster processor and increased RAM significantly decrease page rendering time which is then perceived by the user as decreased load time.
So much for that, then.
As if that's some kind of big surprise or something.
people will still buy it
I think this falls in the realm of future proofing. People like to buy new gadgets that take advantage of technology that isn't popular yet. I remember having a gigabit ethernet card years before they became popular for the same reason.
If you're upgrading its kind of a waste. But for someone like me who's dropping a BB for it its a good phone.
What Apple really should have done was call it something else (like iPhone Video or something else related to a new feature) instead of 'Speed' to save them from this kind of humiliation..
There is no future-proofing as far as technology is concerned, only going obsolete later rather than sooner, but paying a hell of a lot more to be "non-obsolete".
Nah, I just got 4 gigabytes on my new iMac. I don't expect that to be considered a paltry amount of RAM at least for three years, give or take a few months. That's future proofing. With Snow Leopard, the hardware I got is going to feel completely new when it comes out.
A gigabit network card is still unnecessary for most people. 100M is quite good enough to stream 1080p over a network and not many people actually have gigabit routers or switches. With regards to RAM, unless you have a quad core processor then you're more likely to be CPU bound than memory bound for most things.
I don't know about that. RAM just lets you have more space to have apps open and frees up the hard drive from serving up virtual RAM space, which will slow a computer down, so I'm apt to err on having as much RAM as possible. Also, Snow Leopard is supposed to offload a lot of CPU processing to the graphic card, rather than let it sit idle for just graphics intensive stuff like games. So we shouldn't be limited by just processor speed in the not so distant future.
"I don't expect that to be considered a paltry amount of RAM at least for three years, give or take a few months. That's future proofing. With Snow Leopard, the hardware I got is going to feel completely new when it comes out."
4GB ? I dunno if 'paltry' is the word. Standard....mediocre...average...THOSE are probably the words I'd use. Thanks to Vista's gluttonous appetite for RAM 4GB certainly isn't going to impress anyone these days...
Of course, with Win 7 dropping in the fall, I think we're going to finally see some strides forward in the move to general 64-bit processing, which opens the flood gates as far as RAM is concerned. And with DDR3 stepping down into the main stream, I'd say within 1 year of Win 7's launch, 6GB of RAM will be standard for anything but low end systems and netbooks, with 8GB and 12GB fairly common as well.
Then again if YOU personally are still running the same os on your iMac that you are now (or at least will be shortly) 1 - 3 years from now it won't make any difference how much RAM anyone else has, your system should work just as well as ever.
But as far as future proofing for a phone, particularly something *trendy* like an iPhone, what's the point ? Why future proof a device that you replace every 12 - 18 months anyway ? By the time you can say, 'Cool, now the network speed has finally caught up to my phone, I sure am glad I paid the extra and got the high end model last year so I can take advantage of it...' you'll already be about to buy the NEXT one anyway.
You can do it of course, but it kinda seems like a null advantage to me...
I've had my current flip phone for three years and don't plan on getting rid of it unless it breaks. I'm a gadget lover, but I'm not a geeky gadget lover who needs the latest things immediately. And since I've pretty much switched completely from PCs at this point, I don't anticipate that the RAM is going to go obsolete on a Mac as quickly as it does in a PC environment.
When I had a PC, I was literally buying a new video card and more RAM every six months because the gaming market is set up to produce games that don't work on current hardware (Crysis as an example). It's set up that way so that people are always upgrading. Of course, the only company that doesn't do that is Valve, which is why I kind of scaled back my gaming fetish and stuck with their stuff exclusively. Part of the beauty of Steam is it gives the people at Valve a measure of what kind of hardware people are actually using, which is why they have surveys so much.
Not pushing the envelope with graphics lets Valve focus much more on the gameplay, which I think has worked out for them very well. In fact, I really didn't "switch" to my Mac completely until I was sure I could play all the Valve games. Crossover by CodeWeavers made that possible, God bless them.
@Oddmanout.
Are you an idiot? i am sick to death of all this vista bashing, learn or use it before you comment, my vista machine very rarely uses more than 1.5GB (i have 4GB) so i highly doubt it has 'gluttonous appetite for RAM 4GB'.
and god help it but i kinda agree with paul about future proofing, 4GB is gona be fine for a least a few years i reckon.
@GingerFox
You can still get by with 1 GB of RAM on a Mac with Leopard and XP. I don't know about Vista because I dropped that OS like a hot potato, but when Apple finally upgraded the iMacs to 4 gigabytes, I rushed in because that's more than twice than what you need to be comfortable with Leopard and it will probably be at least three times what you need with Snow Leopard.
I like the philosophy that Apple makes their OS FASTER with each release. I wish it was that way with Windows. If it was, I would probably still be on a PC.
OddManOut:
"I'd say within 1 year of Win 7's launch, 6GB of RAM will be standard for anything but low end systems and netbooks, with 8GB and 12GB fairly common as well."
That...shows you:
a) Are a dumbass.
b) Don't know anything about Windows 7.
c) Both.
Windows 7 is usable even on 512MB for basic tasks. 1GB is enough for most people who'll only be chatting it up on farcebook and stuff.
The 3G S is already obsolete. It was obsolete before the 3G even came out. Future-proof, my ass.
@OddManOut
Dude, I feel bad that you're getting flamed for not making sheep-like comments about Microsoft and Vista, but that's the way those Apple Haters are. Don't feel bad about telling the truth. I've experienced it quite a few times when making honest statements about Windows.
You have a right to your opinion. Don't forget that.
Paul, Honest and Truth are not mutually inclusive. An honest statement is merely one that YOU believe in. A truthful statement is a fact. Vista did initially suck on 1GB of ram, but it runs fine now on 1GB of ram. The same way Leopard was not fun initially on anything less then 1 GB of ram.
You really shouldn't talk about sheep-like comments. Show me one post where you have said even one marginally negative thing about an Apple product. I bet you out of the thousands of posts you have on engadget, there is not one.
Thank you Mr. College Professor.
Like I said before the Iphone is like a Ferrari in mud ; they need to cut ties with At&t and go to a real network.
Is there a real network in the US? from what I gather they are all bad.
The US is suffering from some really bad mobile and even wired internet solutions.
That's because they are too cheap to upgrade the speed on the backhaul connections, like I posted above.
Sprint has the fastest network, but it's on the brink of going under.
The iPhone does have a real network. It's called australia. 7.2 is old news, the latest theoretical peak is 21mbit on 3G (theories!)
Actually the notion that everyone is the world is headed for Chicago is bizzare. Rather the rest of the world is doing quite well thankyou and wondering when all the americans are going to try and leave thier country due to the failing network.
So imagine that! Apple HTC and friends could release phones right now with 21mbit down. Imagine the gnashing of teeth from the USA then!
Well except for the Pre which pretty much can only run in the USA and a couple of Asian nations on it's speedy 2mbit wireless broadband standard.
Leave our country because of network speed? You must have better herb in Australia too.
Leave our country because of network speed? You must have better herb in Australia too.
You better duck, a fanboy shitstorm is coming.
Proud of yourself?
lol america and their mobile internet.... if you can't do at least 2mbit on 3.6mbit tech you can't expect to do more on a 7.2mbit tech .
Yeah Beastage, because Americans CHOOSE to have mobile companies that won't spend crap on infrastructure.
I will argue that yes, lack of smart consumerism simply makes it much more profitable for these corporates to do what ever they want.
Yea, isn't that exactly what the free market is supposed to accomplish?
Oh well.
Don't be jealous Beastage just because you can't live in the greatest country in the world, hell, the universe! Why does everyone have the bash the best things? Like the U.S., the iPhone, Family Guy, etc...
So I lack smart consumerism because I have a data plan? I should not use any cellphone service to show the carriers that I want better cellphone service?
That's fun in theory, but I need a phone. There's nothing we can do but complain, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I'm not sure why anyone would be expecting their iPhone 3G S to get the 7.2 speeds... AT&T literally just announced that they would be deploying 7.2 right before the iPhone announcement...
Well there's your answer.
People get excited when they hear theoretical limits. Its like when Sprint busted out EVDO-RevA. Freaking fast if you are near a tower without too much traffic but for the most part it was a bit faster than Rev0 and a little more reliable with sustained speeds.
We can always count on the Ziegler to bring the Truth. That's right, capital T!
The Truth, only the Truth, nothing but the iTruth.
Too bad for you Americans. I usually get 3.2 mbps on my iPhone 3G here in Sweden. The iPhone browser is still slow, but the connection is good for tethering (thanks, jailbreaking!)
Indeed us people in the fake world (as opposed to the US being the "real world) have been enjoying fast 3G networks for a few years now.
Yeah, I keep hearing people from other countries say that. Apparently, AT&T just doesn't have their act together. I hope Apple gets with Verizon or T-Mobile soon. It would open the market wide for them. My brother is on T-Mobile. I could get him an iPhone as a gift if Apple would just release the darn phone.
Paul: I'm on Verizon. :( I'm holding out for an iPhone, but I'm seeing 2011 as the soonest possible hopes for it ;-;
Please no, let's hope Verizon gets it at least by next year. The guys at Apple are smart. I really can't believe that they would be so stupid as to keep the iPhone on one carrier late into next year. That just doesn't compute.
@Ludovic, you're a moron. Take your anti-American sentiment and eat it. You may have encountered an idiot or two that thinks he is better than you because he/she is American, but that's not how all American's are. Also, the reason so many of you "fake countries" have great 3G coverage is because half your countries are smaller than the state of Texas in the U.S.
@Bob
Relax; why be concerned about what someone posts, and why so defensive? Be confident and ignore such slights, and why the backhanded swipe at your backwards countrymen? Tearing others down will not raise you up, and prostrating yourself won't earn you respect from anyone.
@Bob what Ludovic is (rightly) saying is that the sentence in the article which states:
"because for now, anyway, this is one spec bump that means precisely zilch in the real world"
makes the assumption that "real world" == America and nothing exists anywhere else.
I haven't read any antiamericanism in his post, I also haven't read any insults while I have read some in yours.
Now regarding your comment about the state of Texas, remember that the article is talking solely about the city of Chicago which is supposed to have received an updated infrastructure.
Finally I think the real reason why other countries now have a better telecomunication infrastructure than the US (it didn't use to be the case) is that our antitrust legislations are different and applied differently. France is a good example for this as the changes in the quality and cost of service when some new regulation to break the previous France Telecom monopoly on the usage of landlines where enacted was huge.
I think I can give an opinion as I am french I lived 4 years in Japan and I have been living in the US for the last 3 years, in general, almost everything is incredibly cheaper in the US, specially housing, cars, electronics, with two exceptions, all that has to do with telecomunication services and all that has to do with healthcare.
@Bob: Sorry mate, I was just poking fun at the article. A lot of Europeans are baffled at how bad AT&T's woes affect the iPhone. Chris Ziegler says the speed improvement "means precisely zilch in the real world" while here it seems like a substantial selling point.
We cool?
@Ludovic Sorry, I must have read into your post too much there. Kinda made myself look like an arse, lol.
It has 7 times lower latency! That makes a lot of difference (2s connection time drops to 0.3s).
Are you illiterate? "..latency was all over the map on both phones, for the record."
In ATL, I got an average download of 2164 Kbits/s with a max of 2252
Fur upload I got an average and max of 254 Kbits/s
Latency was 181 ms
This article really is meaningless. It's pretty clear that AT&T hasn't rolled out its 7.2 Mbps network yet, but the 3G S consistently loads pages fully before the 3G even has one graphic on the screen. I know, I have both sitting in front of me right now. While the connection may be the same on both phones for the meantime, it's obvious that this is because the 3G's slower hardware creates a bottleneck.
What's up with the 3GS showing a battery percent? That feature is achievable using a jailbroken 3G running SBSettings but I've never seen it anywhere else. As the 3GS is not jailbroken at the moment (though the 3G is for 3.0) then either apple has added that feature and I'm just unaware of it or something fishy is going on. Are the screenshots just mixed up?
Nah, you're right. Apple recently added the percentage meter in 3.0.
Nevermind, just found out Apple added it to the 3GS only for some reason. Kind of an asshole move on their part, well one more reason to jailbreak the 3G!
I have an ipod touch 2G and i am on 3.0g software, with numeric battery meter.
@Blaine Oliver: How did you get that? I'm on the same setup but I have now percentage.
Is a battery percent really a feature? I'd want to turn it off, I don't need to see a percent dropping quickly to remind me how fast the iPhone battery dies.
Yes it's an official feature. You can turn it on in the settings>useage menu. Not sure why they put it there.
Klkl, they stated that latency was all over the place so that screenshot isn't a reliable indicator of the latency you'll see on the 3GS. Although one thing I've ntoiced with my 3G is that even in VA Beach with a strong 3G signal my latency is always at least over 1000ms. The fact that the 3GS hit that low latency even once is better than my 3g has done.
How fast (lol slow) is AT&Ts pre-7.2 Mbit network? Is it 1.8 or 3.6? Because here in Sweden on my 3.6-only phone (my network is 14 Mbit now) I get a solid 3.0 Mbits downtown. If AT&T is supposed to be 3.6 MBit already then 1 Mbit is a really really bad result.
It's supposed to be 3.6.
AT&T's just a fuckup.
greenlight, in some areas it is indeed 1.8, in other areas it is 3.6.
Both UMTS and HDSPA are referred to as 3G by AT&T, from their own site the speed expected for bandwidth-throttled cellphones
http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/why/technology/gsm-gprs.jsp
UMTS: "220 to 320" kbps (can burst at 1.8 for a few seconds)
HSDPA: "400 to 700 kbps, and a burst mode of up to several megabits per second" (the several being 3.6 for a few seconds)
Devices that pay $60/mo for data connect service are not bandwidth throttled and usually get the full possible speed of whatever is locally available. (referred to on the website as 2x data acceleration)
People all over the world look at the usa cell service and lol
Yea not just the cell service, our wired service blows to. I mean common. I can ride in a bullet train across Japan going 200+mph and get a consistent and fast signal, while sitting at my house in the US, it just depends how the weather is outside.
I like the idea that my country (Australia) isn't in the real world, the fact that we have 21Mbit HSDPA covering in excess of 90% of the population obviously doesnt count for much..
Go Telstra NextG, I know I can take advantage of the iPhone 3GS, or a Nokia E72 (10+ Mbit) etc etc
I would guess (based on Bob's comment a bit above) that you have better service because Australia is smaller than the state of Texas ;-)
@Benoit Cerrina - funny that, I always thought Australia and the contiguous US were roughly the same size. Learn some geography, kthx.
90% of a population of 21 million... if you look at the actual percentage of territory that's covered in Australia, it's a bit shameful.
Nobody is certain that AT&T has opened the 7.2Mbps to the general public in Chicago yet. They are still doing testing.
dude at&t has been doing "tests" on different stuff for years.... -_-
well, i think you mean we weren't certain before...
i'm pretty sure we are certain now though
ATT is so fast at rolling out the new tech ;)
Why wink? AT&T has been at it for 3 years rolling out first UMTS then HDSPA which is twice as fast, T-Mobile just started doing a 3G which barely qualifies as UMTS this year.
I live south of Chicago. I knew I would not get 3G service. But when I travel to Chicago, 3G is terrible or worst. AT&T has no problem forcing me to pay for service which they can’t provide. Shame on AT&T for such poor service in a major metro area.
And Apple, you don’t seem to care about your customers by forcing them to live with AT&T. It’s all about money. If apple really wanted to innovate and deliver a quality user experience, they would sell the phone and let me pick my service provider.
I agree with your basic sentiment, but from a business standpoint, it didn't make sense for Apple to start out that way. For one thing, Cingular (later bought by AT&T) gave Apple an unprecedented amount of control and support that Apple wouldn't have got if they had just released the phone unlocked. If they had just unlocked the phone to be used on the carrier of your choice, there would be no visual voicemail, no full (required) data plan, and no profit sharing.
In other words, Apple would have had to sell the phone without a subsidy, which means it would have probably been $800 rather than the $600 it started with. And the data plan was essential for giving people an unrivaled internet experience.
But here's to hoping to put the iPhone on Verizon soon.
But here's to hoping to put the iPhone on Verizon soon
Yeah, enjoy all the nickle and diming and pompass ass customer support reps on Verizon. Take a look at their current mobile app store, same ebay app $3.99 A MONTH. Hopefully Apple won't let them get away with that crap, and is probably the stupid crap Verizon tried to pull in 2006/2007 when Apple first approached them.
The 3G S is faster than my Comcast Broadband high-speed connection. AT&T seems to be ahead of Verizon as a carrier.
http://jamesmsingleton.com
then you need to get rid of comcast homie
I have a 3g and use it in NYC. You are lucky to get edge comparable speeds on AT&T's 3g network around here... and most of the time it drops to edge anyway. I think the 3GS is more of a first move for Apple preparing to get the iPhone on other networks that will provide better service in certain markets. Personally, I can't wait for my AT&T contract to end so I can move to another provider.
Hehe can't believe that US is so far behind on the mobile network. Have had 7.2mbit for far more then a year. Even though you really don't get the 7.2mbit when you use it (unless you're sitting on the antenna), I get around 4-5mbit the connection near my house.
I'm in Denmark.
Cheers
Thats why they are called trials...
Exactly. Sometimes people get so carried away with bashing AT&T that they forget to be reasonable in their criticism.
I'm getting better than that on my 3Gs in Chicago.
Test Date: Jun 19, 2009 7:54:57 PM
Connection Type: Cellular
Download: 2208 kbps
Upload: 265 kbps
Ping: 346 ms
A detailed image for this result can be found here:
http://www.speedtest.net/iphone/7408075.png
Sent from my iPhone 3Gs