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Qualcomm: 5G Android Flagship Phones Will Storm the 2019 Holidays (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the up-next dept.

Get ready for lots of 5G phones in time for the holidays next year. From a report: The first devices for the fast, next-generation network will hit the market in early 2019. Samsung, for one, said it will have a phone for Verizon, AT&T and other networks in the first half of the year. By the holidays next year, every flagship handset -- at least when it comes to those running Google's Android software and using Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor -- will tap into 5G, said Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon. "When we get to exactly this time of year one year from now ... we will see every [handset maker] on the Android ecosystem, their flagship across all US carriers will be a 5G device," he told CNET in an interview Tuesday at Qualcomm's Snapdragon Technology Summit in Hawaii. "Every Android vendor is working on 5G right now."

1 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. That's nice. . . but by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 3, Informative

    The true question is, will the carriers have a RELIABLE, widespread 5G system upon which to use said phones ?

    The low frequency spectrum of 5G should be fine, but you won't see all the super bandwidth that the tech promises at that level.

    It's when you get to the high end of the 5G spectrum ( which is where all the bandwidth is ) that I have concerns about how well it's going to work considering the frequency at which it operates. ( 27 - 40 GHZ ) This area of the spectrum has serious issues when it comes to weather ( Rain, snow, fog, etc ) and has pretty much zero penetration so line of sight to the transmitter is pretty much mandatory.

    The way I visualize it is thinking about the effect heavy rain has on your Satellite TV signal. All those glitches and pixelation you see are a visual representation of what's going to happen to your data at the high bandwidth end of a 5G signal when the weather goes to sh*t. ( And at millimeter wavelengths, it will take far less weather to have the same effect )

    My theory anyway, some cellular engineer should chime in and tell me to STFU if I'm thinking incorrectly about all of this. ( Be sure to explain why )