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#1
What's the real speed of Bluetooth 5.1 file transfer?
Hi, I'm quite disappointed with the current Bluetooth speed I am getting for a zip file (sequential transfer) or any "large" file. My setup is as good as it can get, or pretty close to the best:
- MSI MPG Z390 GAMING PRO CARBON AC: almost the latest Intel chipset paired with a built-in Intel Wireless-AC 9560, which supports 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, MU-MIMO Rx, 2.4GHz/ 5GHz (160MHz) up to 1.73Gbps, and Bluetooth 5.1.
- Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro: Android 11, Qualcomm SM8250 Snapdragon 865 5G (7 nm+), Bluetooth 5.1, A2DP, LE, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive...
As you can see, Bluetooth 5.1 is the best one right now, except for some phones that are starting to come with 5.2 version. The hardware, CPU and other things are top tier so I don't know why my speeds are so slow. I remember I did a test about 5 years ago with BT 4.2 between a medium-end $700 laptop and a low end smartphone and I got 150KB/s. Pretty slow but that was it. Now, with the hardware up there, I am transferring a 136MB zip file to my Poco F2 Pro in 20 min. Which means I am transferring at 113KB/s...
I do understand that Bluetooth transferring is not meant to be used to transfer your whole 4K video 40GB library of the phone to the PC, but I think it's more than fair enough to transfer a bunch of pictures made with the Poco to the PC, let's say 20 pics, which is about 150MB. Pretty basic task, very common, nothing crazy here. There is no way you have to wait 20 minutes to transfer 20 pics in 2021 with the top tech of the market.
I've read that the max speed of BT 5.1 is 2Mbps, which is about 250KB/s, still very slow in 2021 to be honest, but more than twice of what I am getting. In case it was something about WiFi interfering or something (my PC has WiFi built in), I disabled the WiFi and transferred a 10MB file, and reached stable 140KB/s during the whole transfer, which was about 74 seconds. Clearly having the WiFi on affects the speed, but still, it is pretty slow. I am getting the exact same performance I had with a low-end smartphone of 2015 and $700 laptop from 2013. We are in 2021. It can't be that this has not evolved.
First question is, how am I getting with a much better hardware and newer revisions of bluetooth the same speed than 5 years ago?
Second question, can you do the same, with a 10MB file or something, and calculate your speed of transferring?
(you should share the devices you used and their BT version)