The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are excellent phones, but both have suffered from strange glitches and setbacks that have kept them from a well-received launch. And now a new report confirms previously reported concerns about Google's phones: 5G performance is lagging behind other flagships.

PCMag reports that the Pixel 6 Pro's 5G performance falls short of that of Samsung's Galaxy S21. As we pointed out last month, the Pixel 6 uses Samsung's Exynos 5123b modem along with a custom Tensor processor. The problem is that Samsung's model is from last year, and when we look at other phones using this chip, they have failed to match the 5G speeds recorded by phones using this year's Qualcomm X60 modem.

The latest report adds more concrete numbers to what we suspected. When tested on Verizon's superior millimeter wave (mmWave) 5G network, PCMag recorded speeds in excess of 2 Gbps on the Galaxy S21. In comparison, the Pixel 6 struggled to exceed 1 Gbps.

The situation was the same on T-Mobile and its carrier's more extensive but slower mid-band 5G network. There, the S21 won in six of seven speed tests.

U.S. consumers who buy the Pixel 6 Pro will have a phone that supports mmWave, in addition to all the frequency bands used by Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T. However, as PCMag points out, a combination of low-band to mid-band 5G is not necessarily supported, which is how carriers will expand their 5G coverage in the near future. Therefore, the Pixel 6 Pro may be at an even greater disadvantage in the future.

PCMag tested the Pixel 6 Pro with Net Monitor and Ookla Speedtest and found it to produce poor signal numbers; when using Net Monitor, which measures a signal sample every second, the Galaxy S21 detected 4G LTE and did a very good job of catching it, capture, the Galaxy S21 did a very good job of detecting and capturing 4G LTE. However, for some reason the Pixel 6 Pro stuck to 5G and failed to properly capture 4G signal strength; the Pixel 6 reported better signal strength than the S21 on T-Mobile's 5G network.

In any case, this means that 5G performance may be another reason to consider Samsung over Google when choosing between the Google Pixel 6 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. Not only that, but while the Pixel 6 was launched with Android 12, Samsung has now released Android 12 with One UI 4 (Samsung's Android skin), making it a more attractive option.