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All in blue: The new iPhones 12 (left) and 12 Pro
Photo:
Matthias Kremp / DER SPIEGEL
I've never had a test procedure like this before: To try out the most important feature of the new iPhones 12 and 12 Pro - 5G mobile communications - I had to go on a bike ride.
Only seven kilometers away from my home did the two new Apple smartphones display "5G" in the top right corner of the screen.
According to the Telekom network expansion card, I should be able to receive 5G in my garden at "up to 375 Mbit / s", i.e. 375 megabits per second.
Apple cannot be blamed for the fact that reality is far from this; rather, Telekom should check whether their cards accurately reflect the current status.
In front of the company's Hamburg branch at Überseering, I got 5G reception, but according to the test app Speedtest, I didn't even get 40 Mbit / s, although according to the Telekom card, up to 375 Mbit / s should be possible there too.
After all: just a few hundred meters away, the speed test even showed me 381 Mbit / s.
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5G test in front of the Hamburg branch of Telekom
Photo: Matthias Kremp / DER SPIEGEL
That is still a long way from the often touted gigabit per second, but at least faster than LTE, which came to 222 Mbit / s in the same place.
What the short test with bike and iPhone 12 shows: At least at the moment, it is far from worthwhile for everyone and everywhere to buy a new smartphone because of 5G.
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