Pixel 10 Pro just pulled off a narrow victory against iPhone 17 family

Google has just scored an important win for the Android camp in its competition with Apple. According to a study based on crowdsourced data collected by Ookla, the Pixel 10 Pro beat the iPhone 17 family by delivering the fastest global median Wi-Fi download speeds.

Ookla’s Speedtest Intelligence data was collected over the six weeks following the launch of the iPhone 17 series, during which the Pixel flagship outpaced Apple’s brand-new N1-powered iPhones.

Among flagship devices tested across various regions, Google’s Pixel 10 Pro achieved the highest global median Wi-Fi download speed at 335.33Mbps. However, the iPhone 17 family was not too far behind, with speeds of 329.56Mbps. It’s a pretty slim margin, but notable nevertheless due to Apple debuting its first custom networking chip on he iPhone 17 family, replacing Broadcom-based Wi-Fi chips that the company has used for years. Google, on the other hand.

Apple and Google switch positions at the opposite end of the performance spectrum. Ookla notes that in the 10th percentile (worst-case scenario) download speeds, Apple takes the global lead at 56.08Mbps, just ahead of the Pixel 10 Pro’s 53.25Mbps, suggesting Apple’s N1 chip delivers more consistent performance in challenging Wi-Fi conditions.

Regardless of its performance compared to the Pixel 10 Pro, Ookla notes that the iPhone 17 lineup shows a big generation-over-generation jump. With the N1 chipset, median global download and upload speeds on the iPhone 17 series improved by up to 40% versus the Broadcom-powered iPhone 16 family. Apple also clocked faster Wi-Fi speeds across every region where the study was conducted.

While Google and Apple were battling for the fastest everyday download speeds, Xiaomi’s 15T Pro quietly became the star in top-end Wi-Fi performance. Thanks to its MediaTek Wi-Fi chip, the phone delivered the highest speeds when conditions were at their best, hitting a blazing 887.25Mbps in peak download speeds.

It also uploaded files faster than other flagships across all levels of testing and offered the smoothest, most responsive connection with the lowest measured latency (15ms).

So even if it isn’t the overall download speed champion, as per Ookla’s numbers, the Xiaomi 15T Pro is the device that performs the best when Wi-Fi is fast enough to let the hardware do its thing.

Next up, Ookla noted that HUAWEI’s Pura 80 was impacted by a lack of 6GHz support. The Pura 80 family relies on a self-developed Wi-Fi solution (likely from HiSilicon). Its biggest disadvantage, according to the report, is the absence of 6GHz support, which brings down peak performance.

However, when looking only at traditional 2.4GHz/5GHz networks, the Pura 80 was far more competitive. In Southeast Asia, using Wi-Fi 6, the phone even delivered the second-fastest 90th-percentile upload speeds (603.61Mbps) among all Android flagships tested by Ookla.

Across Android flagships, median 6GHz download speeds were 77% faster than 5GHz. Wi-Fi 7 devices saw a similar boost. Ookla notes that North America is leading the transition, with Galaxy S25 users connecting to 6GHz networks in over 20% of Speedtest samples.