The holidays are nearly here and with them the desire to treat yourself or a loved one to an upgraded phone, just because. The first question you’re likely to ask yourself as you browse new models is “To 5G or not to 5G?” Once you check the Ookla 5G Map to see if your operator has deployed 5G in your area, you’ll probably want to know if the 5G speeds are worth the extra cost.
Ookla has analysed Speedtest Intelligence data from the most popular Android and iPhone devices around the world during Q3 2021 to help you see if it’s worth the upgrade.
Ookla’s analysis includes data on the five 4G Android devices in each country with the largest number of results during Q3 2021 as well as the five most popular 5G-capable Android devices.
5G shows a small improvement over 4G on Android in South Africa
The reports from Ookla reveal the most popular 4G devices in South Africa showed a wide range of median download speeds during Q3 2021, from 18.00 Mbps (Huawei P20 Lite) to 40.69 Mbps (Samsung Galaxy Note10+).
South Africa’s median download speeds on the most popular 5G devices were among the lowest we saw, from 43.09 Mbps on the Samsung Galaxy Note20 5G to 67.09 Mbps on the S21 Ultra 5G.
iPhone 12 was almost twice as fast as the iPhone 11 in South Africa
Ookla said there weren’t sufficient samples in South Africa to analyse the iPhone 13, so it compared the iPhone 12 to the iPhone 11. T
he median download speed on the iPhone 12 was almost twice as fast as that on the iPhone 11 during Q3 2021.