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Qualcomm: 5G Android Flagship Phones Will Storm the 2019 Holidays (cnet.com)
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."
It still works. I'll keep it. Fuck Christmas (sorry, it's "holiday season" officially now) mass consumption.
In fact, fuck mass consumption and planned obsolescence year round...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
That's kinda where I'm at with my thinking. 5G support may storm the holiday season, but without the corresponding infrastructure upgrades in your area, it won't do you any good. Given that our local 4G connections didn't actually come with 4G speeds until somewhat recently, I'm not exactly holding my breath for 5G speeds anytime in the next few years in my area.
And, frankly, even if they were to come soon, I'd be hard-pressed to think of many situations where I'd meaningfully benefit from the speed jump. There certainly are use cases for speeds like those (e.g. able to do work from a cellular-connected laptop), so I'm glad to see that the rollout is happening, but the heaviest thing most smartphone users might do is watch an HD video on YouTube, which only needs 3-5 Mbps for 1080p, which is a fraction of the speed that 4G already offers. They'll see no benefit from 5G, so marketing it as "storming" the holiday season is nothing more than an attempt at driving demand for a feature that laypeople don't really understand.
Apple had the courage to push USB ports on people before they were popular, and had the courage to remove the headphone jack despite protests from an army of losers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley