Published in Mobiles

European iPhone 7 has an Intel or Qualcomm modem

by on15 September 2016


Exclusive: iPhone 7 Plus too

Fudzilla has already written a long article on the iPhone 7 with Intel and Qualcomm chipset that affects  USA customers but it turns out that at least some parts of the European Union will get an Intel and Qualcomm based iPhone 7 too. We recommend you to read that earlier piece as the modem performance will affect your overall iPhone 7 experience.  

Apple.de in Germany lists two version of the phone iPhone 7 (Modell A1660, A1778): M3, T4 and iPhone 7 Plus (Modell A1661, A1784): M3, T4. The fact that Apple.com clearly lists that Models A1778 and A1784 do not support CDMA networks, strongly suggests that these could be Intel modem based versions. With that in mind, it looks like there will be an iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus selling in Germany using an Intel modem.

We started looking deeper and discovered that the UK, France and Spanish versions all come in Model 1660 and A1778 for the iPhone 7 and Modell A1661, A1784 for the  iPhone 7 Plus.

iphone7es

Spanish version of the iPhone 7 website

Europe will get a mix of phones. We called  local operators and asked about the version of iPhone that they are selling, but they either didn’t want to comment or some of them haven't got the actual physical boxes in stock, at least in Austria.  

There is currently no way of telling which phone you are ordering, but it is rather clear that Model A1660 and Model A1661 support CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1900, 2100 MHz) while Model A1778 and Model A1784 don’t. One might argue that CDMA is not that relevant in Europe and that most carriers are shutting these services down, but we want you to concentrate on the fact that Intel doesn’t have nearly as much experience as Qualcomm when it comes to modems. There is absolutely no way that Intel will beat Qualcomm in modem performance, power utilization, and basic functionality, and yes this includes making  phone calls too.

Remember Intel has never shipped millions of mobile standalone modems in its history and Infineon, the company that Intel acquired, has never shipped 4G modems, only 3G. 

iphone7fr

French version of the iPhone 7 website
iphone7uk
United Kingdom version of the iPhone 7 website

 

Last modified on 15 September 2016
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