Well, this week I was shooting a video review of the $1,400 Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra No such luck, however

On T-Mobile's 5G network, I fired up the Speedtestnet app to see what download speeds the S20 Ultra could get in midtown Manhattan I got 325 Mbps near Bryant Park, but only 746 Mbps in Times Square Is this 5G?

To be fair, the S20 Ultra did achieve much faster downloads in Brooklyn, with 989 Mbps down in one test, but curiously, the Speediest app's results menu showed the phone as being on LTE

Overall, the S20 averaged 25 Mbps download over several weeks, which is quite weak

Now, this is just one app, so I decided to download some web pages alongside the iPhone 11 Pro Max, an LTE device on Verizon's network In some cases, the T-Mobile network was faster on the Galaxy S20 Ultra, but in other cases, the 4G iPhone loaded sites and articles faster

As a real-world test in an alternate universe, I downloaded a 51-minute Altered Carbon season 2 episode on Netflix using T-Mobile's "5G" Seeing that the progress meter barely moved after a minute, I gave up

So what's going on, as PCMag's Sascha Segan explained, is that T-Mobile 5G and AT&T 5G are now using low-band LTE in most places, offering speeds close to 4G The situation should improve as the carriers build out their networks, but for now the 5G icon appears to be a big lie

Meanwhile, Verizon's 5G network boasts speeds in excess of 1 Gbps on the carrier's mmWave-based network Verizon's 5G is difficult to reach indoors, as it requires being near a Verizon node Still, it is commendable that Verizon only displays the 5G icon when 5G performance is available

We ran several speed tests in Bryant Park using Verizon's Galaxy S20 Ultra and recorded download speeds of 14 Gbps This is much faster than T-Mobile's network

We also downloaded a 46-minute episode of "Altered Carbon 2" on Verizon's 5 network in just 5 seconds Yes, five seconds

Sprint's 5G network is in the middle of the pack, typically at speeds of 200-300 Mbps in the 25 GHz midband spectrum Not bad, given that it does not require a line-of-sight to achieve these speeds

More speed tests will be conducted with the Galaxy S20 Ultra, Galaxy S20, and Galaxy S20 Plus using all of these networks But I want to warn you now that, at least based on my experience, T-Mobile's 5G does not feel like 5G at all right now