What were the five fastest 5G phones in the U.S. during the third quarter?

Even if you're not familiar with Ookla, if you have owned a smartphone for years you are probably well-acquainted with the company's Speedtest.net app. This app measures the download data speed that your phone is running at, the upload data speed, and how fast it takes your phone to respond to a network connection.  The app is available for iOS phones from the App Store and Android phones from the Google Play Store.

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday just days away, Ookla wanted consumers in various countries to know the top five fastest 5G phones in their markets during the third quarter. We shall take a look at the results from several countries starting first with the U.S. In the states, during Q3, the iPhone 14 Pro Max was the fastest 5G phone with a median download speed of 177.21Mbps slightly ahead of the 175.08Mbps recorded for the iPhone 14 Pro. Both models had upload speeds of 19.28Mbps and 18.59Mbps respectively.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 had the third fastest 5G speed in the country at 162.50Mbps (15.17Mbps upload). Surprisingly, the Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G beat out the Galaxy S22 Ultra 140.06Mbps to 137.42Mbps down and 14.77Mbps to 14.48Mbps up. Keep in mind that this includes nationwide 5G which is easier to find, but doesn't deliver the speeds that mid-band 5G and mmWave 5G do. The latter is almost impossible to find. 5G Mid-band signals are easier to connect to and are up to 10 times faster than LTE.

Again, these are median speeds which means that half the results in a sample are faster and the other half is slower. Also, not just any phone model could be included. Oojkla says that the phones in the survey "had to have a market share of greater than or equal to 0.5% of all devices and a minimum sample size of 100 devices in a given market. Each market we examined included only 5G samples from every 5G provider in a given country."

Ookla continued by noting "That means performance most likely varies network to network and country to country, but this provides a snapshot of what you might typically expect. It should be noted that some newer device models like the iPhone 14, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4, and Google Pixel 7 launched in select markets on different days and may not have been included in our Q3 2022 analysis."

What are the fastest 5G phones in the world's top smartphone market? That is China, by the way. First of all, the median speeds are much faster than in the U.S. The top phone in that country was the OnePlus 9 5G with a median download speed of 349.15Mbps during the third quarter. The Huawei P40 5G was next as the photography-based flagship from 2020 tallied a median 5G download speed of 344.41Mbps edging out the 344.23Mbps delivered by the Huawei Mate 30 5G from 2019.

The Huawei Mate 40 5G was next with a median 5G download speed of 332.39Mbps. Rounding out the top five in China during Q3 was the Huawei Mate 40 Pro 5G at 328.25Mbps. The fastest of the five when it comes to 5G upload speed was the Mate 40 5G with a median speed of 56.36Mbps.

The top five fastest 5G phones in Brazil during the third quarter are led by a different name. The Motorola Moto G 5G Plus had a leading 358.39Mbps median 5G download speed. By far, it also had the top median 5G upload speed at 43.34Mbps. Behind the Motorola model was the Xiaomi Poco X4 Pro 5G with a median 5G download speed of 355.43Mbps. The rest of the models were all iPhone 13 models including the iPhone 13 Pro Max (344.44), iPhone 13 mini (341.21), and iPhone 13 (336.04).

In Japan, three of the top five fastest 5G phones during the third quarter are made by Sony led by the Xperia 1 II 5G (median download 5G speed of 224.68Mbps). Behind it was the Samsung Galaxy S20 5G (189.22Mbps). In the Philippines, the top five during the period from July through September include the Samsung Galaxy A53 (median 5G download speed of 199.90Mbps), Huawei Nova 7 5G (192.80Mbps), Huawei Nova 7 SE 5G (188.32Mbps), Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G (185.85Mbps), and the Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G (183.54Mbps).

So now that you have this data, you can make an informed decision as to which handset you might want to gift someone with this holiday season-even if that someone is yourself.