T-Mobile USA’s Samsung Galaxy S 4G and Sprint’s HTC Evo Shift 4G may be two of the fastest smartphones on the market right now, according to Metrico Wireless.
Metrico tested all smartphones advertised as 4G-capable by U.S. carriers (prior to the launch of Verizon Wireless’ LTE-capable ThunderBolt) across multiple markets. During the evaluation
period, only Sprint and T-Mobile were determined to offer smartphones fulfilling the criteria for
evaluation.
Both stationary and mobile throughput measurements were taken with a 10 MB file (stationary), 5MB (mobile) file for download and 1MB file for upload. As you might expect, the company found that average overall data performance on 4G devices was significantly improved over comparable 3G devices. Metrico recorded a 1,000+ percent increase in download speed while mobile on Sprint 4G compared to 3G.
Web pages loaded significantly faster on the 4G devices compared to 3G devices, with Sprint 4G on average taking one-third of the time to load a page compared to Sprint 3G, and T-Mobile 4G taking 46 percent of the time compared to T-Mobile 3G.
The T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S 4G had the best average data download speed while
stationary among the devices tested, with an average of 6.154 Mbps or 25 percent above the
average for all devices, and a maximum of 13.818 Mbps. The Galaxy S 4G also was ahead in download reliability, 9 percent more reliable than the T-Mobile myTouch 4G and 11 percent more reliable than the T-Mobile G2.
Over at Sprint, the HTC Evo Shift had the best data download speed while mobile among the devices tested, with an average of 5.699 Mbps or 27 percent above the average for all devices, and a maximum of 11.188 Mbps. It was also second in stationary downloads (5.031 Mbps average, 11.004 Mbps maximum).
Metrico says its measurements were performed with an ETSI-standard Web page designed to represent an average Web page, which was downloaded from Metrico-controlled servers
to ensure consistent Web server performance.
At its booth this week, Metrico is polling show attendees: Which 4G smartphones are the fastest (so far)? After the show, the company plans to publish a white paper that may or may not confirm popular opinion depending on what its tests show.