The iPhone 12's 5G is not perfect, only the 5nm baseband is enough

in spite ofiPhone 12 Through the Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 baseband and antenna enhancement, the two major drawbacks of 5G loss and poor signal are solved, but the current iPhone 12 is still hard to say perfect. Because it is somewhat regrettable to use the 5nm A14 chip of the iPhone 12 with the 7nm Snapdragon X55 baseband, perhaps the Snapdragon X60, which is also a 5nm process, is the best partner in the future.

I believe that many netizens have recently seen the iPhone 12 demo videos on the Douyin platform, including the Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 baseband. It is this chip that gives the iPhone 12 the most powerful 5G link capability in the industry. However, there are also some regrets that the iPhone 12 was born at an untimely time and did not use Qualcomm's most advanced X60 5G baseband, otherwise it would be even worse.

Although the Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 baseband has excellent data, it is based on the mainstream 7nm process. And Qualcomm's third-generation 5G baseband X60 has evolved to 5nm process technology. It can only be said that the iPhone 12 was born at an untimely time. Only the X55 can be mass-produced during its release cycle. This small regret will be left to the iPhone 13 to make up.

Snapdragon X55 baseband has large size and high power consumption

However, many netizens are completely relieved after seeing this Qualcomm X55 baseband. After all, the Intel baseband adopted by the past few generations of iPhones has indeed caused netizens to criticize it. The poor iPhone signal has become a consensus. Compared to the huge improvement that the X55 baseband brings to the iPhone 12, the small regret of 7nm may not be worth mentioning.

As for the battery life performance under 5G, the established technology website Tomsguide recently compared the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro with a variety of AndroidCell phoneThe battery life under the 5G network was tested for comparison. The test method was to adjust the brightness of the mobile phone screen to 150nit to browse the web continuously, and refresh a new page every 30 seconds until the battery was exhausted.

The test results show that the 5G endurance performance of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro lags behind that of the Android camp phones, and they are almost at the bottom. The iPhone 12 standard version lasted only 8 hours and 25 minutes on AT&T's 5G network, and the iPhone 12 Pro lasted 9 hours and 6 minutes on T-Mobile's 5G network, which performed slightly better.

5G makes iPhone 12 battery life worse

Regarding 5G, the author has always maintained a consistent view that only the advancement of 5nm technology can smooth the increase in power consumption and volume of 5G chips, even the iPhone is no exception. Of course, the 5G external baseband is only one of the factors, such as the screen, background management mechanism and other factors will also lead to differences in battery life, the most important thing is that the battery capacity of the iPhone 12 is too small!

And speaking of it, next year’s iPhone 13 is actually a product worth looking forward to, because it is basically determined that Apple’s iPhone 13 will use a 5nm process Snapdragon X60 baseband.

The reason for this affirmation goes back to the settlement between Apple and Qualcomm last year. In April 2019, Apple and Qualcomm reached an agreement to settle the protracted legal proceedings between the two companies on a global scale.Apple iPhone 12The series and subsequent products use Qualcomm's 5G modem chips to pave the way.

The 5nm process Snapdragon X60 baseband is the perfect match

According to page 71 of the settlement agreement between Apple and Qualcomm, Apple plans to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon X60 modem chip in its new products launched from June 1, 2021 to May 31, 2022. Apple also promised to use Qualcomm's unannounced X65 and X70 modem chips in new products launched between June 1, 2022 and May 31, 2024.

Obviously, the X60 modem chip based on 5nm process technology will have better performance than X55. Currently this baseband product has been released on February 18, 2020. Qualcomm emphasized that the Snapdragon X60 is a complete system-level solution including SDX60 baseband, RF transceiver, RF front-end, millimeter wave antenna module, and so on.

5nm chip + 5nm baseband makes 5G mobile phones mature

Although the adoption of Qualcomm’s “family bucket” may have some impact on Apple’s iPhone’s profit margins and final price, these side effects are not compared to the poor signal, slow connection, and even lack of 5G that have been widely criticized in the past. So important. After all, the Qualcomm Snapdragon X60 with 5nm process can be smaller, stronger, and more power efficient.

Having said that, would you still buy an iPhone 12? Anyway, if it is me, I want to wait. Of course, this is not waiting for the party's victory. Technology will always develop. Late purchases will be cheaper or more advanced in technology. But nowadays smart phones are already saturated, unless you are still using your old phone many years ago and you can't bear it. I believe that many netizens' phones are not too old.

With 5nm chips and 5nm baseband, 5G phones will truly mature!