Every year, a new smartphone arrives promising a better camera, a brighter screen, or some new artificial intelligence feature that is supposed to change the way we live. Most of us have become a little cynical about it.

If we're being honest, moving from a Galaxy S24 to an S25, or from an iPhone 14 to an iPhone 15, often feels like a relatively small step. The improvements are real, but they can be difficult to notice in day-to-day use. As consumers, many of us have started asking a perfectly reasonable question: is it really worth upgrading any more?

At Paradise Mobile, we recently decided to investigate one area of smartphone performance that almost never gets discussed outside engineering circles: the cellular modem.

The modem is the part of your phone responsible for connecting to the mobile network. It determines how well your device can hear the network, how effectively the network can hear your device, and ultimately how reliably you stay connected when signal conditions become challenging.

Unlike cameras and displays, modem performance rarely appears in advertising campaigns. Yet it is one of the most important components in the device.

To understand whether manufacturers are still making meaningful progress in this area, we conducted a comparative field study between Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra and the newer Galaxy S26 Ultra. Rather than relying on laboratory testing or manufacturer specifications, we evaluated both devices under carefully controlled real-world conditions across Bermuda.

Testing was performed in Paget, Smith’s Parish, Elbow Beach, downtown Hamilton and the LF Wade International Airport area, providing a mix of indoor, outdoor, urban and weak-coverage environments. More than 130 measurements were collected across these five locations while controlling for software, subscriber profile, device placement, environmental conditions, and network configuration.

The results were clear: the Galaxy S26 Ultra outperformed the Galaxy S25 Ultra in 20 of the 28 radio-frequency measurements we collected, while the S25 Ultra led in seven categories and one category resulted in a tie.

What makes that significant is that these were not marketing specifications or synthetic benchmark scores. These were measurements taken on a live production network under real-world conditions.

In several locations, the newer device demonstrated stronger signal reception, improved signal quality, and the ability to maintain connections while transmitting with less power.

In practical terms, that can translate into better indoor coverage, more reliable connectivity at the edge of the network, improved battery efficiency, and fewer moments where your phone appears to have signal but struggles to actually do anything useful.

This is an important reminder that smartphone manufacturers continue to invest heavily in areas most consumers never see.

While cameras receive the headlines, enormous engineering effort goes into modem development, antenna design, radio optimisation, and power efficiency. These improvements are often invisible until you're standing in a weak coverage area, inside a concrete building, or trying to maintain a connection where an older device might struggle.

That reality becomes even more relevant as consumers begin holding onto their devices for longer periods of time.

Recent European regulations aimed at improving battery repairability and reducing electronic waste are intended to extend the life span of smartphones. From an environmental perspective, that is a positive development. However, if people are keeping their devices for longer, it also becomes easier to miss just how much technology continues to advance between generations.

A phone that is four, five, or six years old may still look modern and run the latest applications, but the radio technology inside it may be several generations behind current designs. Over time, those improvements compound. In practical terms, photos upload faster, videos start more quickly, applications feel more responsive, and connectivity remains more reliable in challenging coverage areas.

Our testing suggests that smartphone innovation hasn't slowed down. In many cases, it has simply moved into areas most consumers rarely think about.

At Paradise Mobile, we’ve never encouraged customers to replace perfectly good devices simply for the sake of owning the latest model. Smartphones are a significant investment, and people should upgrade when there is a genuine benefit to doing so. Our testing suggests that those benefits can extend beyond cameras and artificial intelligence features and into the fundamental performance of the device itself.

The important takeaway is that today’s smartphone upgrades are not just about cameras and artificial intelligence. Some of the most meaningful improvements never make the advertisements or keynote presentations. They happen deep inside the device, hidden from view, quietly determining whether your phone stays connected when you need it most.

• Zlatko Zahirovic is the cofounder and chief technology officer of Paradise Mobile and deputy chairman of the GSMA North America Terminals Working Group