When it comes to a pleasant internet experience, the speed of your connection plays a crucial role. The speed can be low if all you need is to send emails without attachments or do some text chat. However, your requirements will increase if you need to stream music or video on your smartphone. In order to evaluate the speed of the internet connection that you have available on your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone, we started testing several apps that tell you how fast it is. Such apps can be used to check if your mobile provider or Internet Service Provider (ISP) provides the bandwidth that it has promised. They are useful also when you are troubleshooting a problem with your data connection. Let's see which are the best free apps for testing the speed of your internet connection on smartphones with Windows 10 Mobile:
1. Network Speed Test
Network Speed Test is one of the most popular and high rated apps in the Store. Developed by Microsoft Research, the app will use your location and access your internet connection to measure your download speed, upload speed and network delay. Just press Start and wait for your result.
The app will also run some additional tests to measure parameters like Max jitter and Packet loss. Jitter is defined as a variation in the delay of received packets. Network congestion or improper configuration can increase this delay. On the other side, the Packet loss occurs when one or more packets of data travelling across a computer network fail to reach their destination. Packet loss is typically caused by network congestion and it is measured as a percentage of packets lost with respect to packets sent. Although these parameters may seem a little advanced, they can help you choose a suitable ISP.
If you swipe right, you will access the network screen containing information about your current network such as the Connection type, Network name, Internet status and Host name.
One cool thing about this app is the fact that it is able to save your past network performance in the history screen. Swipe right again from your network screen to get to it. One con is the fact that the history doesn't state which network you're using when testing multiple systems.
Overall, the app looks nice, it's really clean, easy to understand and quite fast. It can prove to be really useful, helping you get an idea of your real bandwidth. Try it by yourself and tell us what you think.
2. Speedtest.net
Another great app for testing the speed your Internet connection is Speedtest.net. It is believed to be most accurate app in the Store for this purpose. It measures three basic parameters: Ping, Download and Upload speed. In contrast to the previous app, Speedtest.net also offers some real time graphs to prove your network consistency, not just a number which only reflects the maximum capacity of your network.
The app allows you to track the past results, but unlike Network Speed Test, pressing each test result will open a detailed report of the test, allowing you to distinguish the network when testing multiple systems.
This app is quite popular, not only on Windows devices and it offers results similar to Network Speed Test. It's also really easy to use and it ooks nice. It doesn't measure parameters like Max jitter and Packet loss, but we don't think this is a major drawback for the casual user. Try this app and tell us what you think.
3. SpeedChecker
SpeedChecker is another interesting app for testing the speed of your network. Just like the other apps, it measures Ping, Download and Upload speed. The test takes a little longer compared to the previous apps but we don't think it's a significant shortcoming.
Using the current results the app will automatically estimate the download time for an mp3 file or a video file.
It allows you to track your previous performance in the History screen, and it also creates graphs to check for your network consistency, but unlike the graphs offered by Speedtest.net, these are not real-time.
The app looks good, provides a lot of statistics, but what we find weird is the fact that the results vary significantly from the previous apps we presented. Try this app by yourself and tell us what you think.
4. Free Speed Test
Free Speed Test is a quite comprehensive app and it offers results similar to Network Speed Test and Speedtest.net. It measures the download and upload speed and the network delay but also the jitter and the packet loss. It creates real time graphs just like Speedtest.net and it measures the data amount used to run the test.
The app displays your previous results along with your location, the date and the time you ran the test.
What's cool about this app is the fact that it allows you to view a ranking of countries by the top speed , a ranking of internet providers, manufactures and phones.
We like this app a lot and we strongly recommend it. It measures basic and advanced parameters, creates real-time graphs, provides accurate results and it offers world rankings of network speeds and internet providers. What we don't like is the way the previous results are displayed and the dated design of the app.
5. Speed Test
Speed Test is rather basic, as well as easy to use and understand. Similar to the other apps it measures the Latency, Download and Upload speed.
The app also locates your network, displaying it on a map along with its coordinates.
As usual, you can view your previous test results which seem to be similar to most of the apps we tested. The history displays the name of the network so you can compare the results when testing multiple networks.
We like this app mostly because of its simple and good looking user interface. Anyone can use it and understand it. If you like this app, test it and tell us what you think.
Conclusion
All the apps we presented are really easy to use by any type of user. It's up to you to analyze your options and choose the app that suits you the best. Although all the apps we presented are reliable, Speedtest.net, Free Speed Test and Network Speed Test are the best. Try the apps we suggested and tell us which one you like. If there are any other apps which deserve to be mentioned in our article, share them in the comments below.
