A simple differential enhanced broadband dual‐polarized printed dipole antenna for 2G/3G/LTE base station applications is presented. The proposed antenna contains two orthogonal square‐shaped dipoles and a novel square‐shaped feeding structure to achieve a wide bandwidth, and a planar reflector to shape radiation patterns. Due to adopting the differential feeding and ideally symmetrical structure, the antenna can achieve low cross‐polarization level and high port‐to‐port isolation, respectively. Measured results show that the proposed antenna achieves a bandwidth of 67.5% for SWR < 1.5, differential port‐to‐port isolation better than −40 dB, stable half‐power beam width (HPBW) 68.7° ± 4.2° at E‐plane and 68.3° ± 4.9° at H‐plane, and a stable antenna gain of 7.8 ± 1 dBi from 1.65 to 3.33 GHz. The cross‐polarization ratio within the main lobe remains over than −25 dB, and the front‐to‐back ratios keep higher than 31 dB over the operating bandwidth. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:2864–2868, 2016