Apple’s hot new iPhone SE and iPad Air are making an important 5G compromise

By Scott Marlette Last updated Mar 9, 2022

With “peek performance” being the catchy tagline of Apple’s first big product launch event of 2022, we’re obviously not shocked to see the third-gen iPhone SE “borrow” its A15 processor from the ultra-high-end iPhone 13 family, and even more impressively, the fifth-gen iPad Air share a state-of-the-art M1 silicon with the iPad Pro (2021) duo.

But (somewhat) surprisingly, it looks like “peek” speeds will not be part of the package for the upgraded budget-friendly 4.7-inch handset or the 5G-enabled version of the super-powerful new 10.9-inch tablet.

That’s right, both the iPhone SE (2022) and iPad Air 5 are sub-6 GHz 5G-compatible devices only, lacking mmWave support. If you don’t really know what any of that means, the simple way to put it is that these bad boys will not be able to deliver the highest 5G speeds currently available in the US.

How big of a difference will this make?

In short, not very big. That’s because mmWave 5G is an absolutely breathtaking technology… on paper, and a largely useless feature in reality. Okay, that might be a little harsh, so we’ll try to rephrase it in a way that won’t make Verizon’s head honchos too upset.

Those average 5G download speeds were recorded largely without mmWave help.

The problem is mmWave 5G signal doesn’t travel very far, can’t penetrate buildings or other obstacles, and isn’t even available in many cities to begin with, let alone rural areas.

Still, this can be a nice feature to have for the tiny fraction of Verizon (and AT&T, and T-Mobile) subscribers that are (sometimes) able to make good use of it, and perhaps more importantly, it’s something that the overwhelming majority of modern high-end phones (and even tablets) do offer as standard. Hence, it’s definitely a tad disappointing to see Apple cut this particular corner, especially given the iPhone SE 3’s price hike over its 4G LTE-only predecessor.

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