Items tagged with 5G
The Vivo Nex 3 is now official, and confirms the leaks that we first saw a few months ago. The smartphone sports a wicked high screen-to-body ratio that stands at 99.6 percent. With that being said, there are still tiny bezels found at the bottom and top of the 6.89-inch Full HD+ Waterfall curved display. What you won't find on the Nex 3 is a display notch, which suits us just fine. To make up for the lack of a selfie camera nestled in a notch or a punch hole cutout, the Nex 3 uses a pop-up 16MP selfie camera with an LED flash. The camera can extend out in just 0.65 seconds and will automatically retract if you drop the smartphone so that you don't damage the mechanism. Moving to the back...
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Qualcomm has been at the forefront of 5G development with its Snapdragon X50 modem, which began shipping in smartphone this year. The Snapdragon X50 is the modem of choice for most of today's shipping flagship 5G-enabled devices including the Galaxy Note 10 5G and OnePlus 7 Pro 5G. However, despite the obvious performance benefits of having a 5G modem in these first-generation devices, there are a few downsides to Qualcomm's current implementation. For starters, the Snapdragon X50 (and its Snapdragon X55 successor) are standalone chips. They are separate from the primary SoC, and hence take up additional space on a smartphone's PCB. Given that space in smartphones is a premium, OEMs would prefer...
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South Korea has one of the largest gaming markets in the world. Many companies have taken notice of this phenomenon and are looking for ways to engage that market. SK Telecom and Microsoft recently announced their upcoming plans for 5G-based cloud gaming in South Korea. According to the Korea Creative Content Agency, 47.3% of the South Korea gaming market is taken up by mobile gaming. SK Telecom has the largest mobile subscriber base in the country, including 1 million 5G users. The company was the first network in the world to provide 5G wireless service to their customers. Ryu Young-sang of SK Telecom and Phil Spencer of Microsoft. Image via Microsoft. SK Telecom will therefore let Microsoft...
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Sprint has announced that it has turned on its 5G network in three new markets. The new markets include New York City, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C. Those cities are now live in addition to the previously launched cities including Kansas City, Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas-Fort Worth. Sprint says that its "true 5G" network in the new cities is running Nokia 64T64R 5G Massive MIMO radios. Those radios have a split mode that allows Sprint to offer LTE Advanced and 5G New Radio (NR) service on the 2.5GHz mid-band spectrum. Those radios are being deployed on the existing 4G cell sites to provide a nearly identical footprint for the 2.5GHz LTE and 5G NR coverage. As the Sprint 5G network...
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During yesterday's Samsung Unpacked event, the South Korean electronics maker briefly displayed a slide showing the two main versions of the Galaxy Note 10, and accompanying price points. As shown above, there are also 5G variants of both the Galaxy Note 10+ and, yes, the smaller Galaxy Note 10, though availability for the smaller model is limited. According to the slide, US pricing breaks down as follows... Galaxy Note 10: $949 and up Galaxy Note 10 5G: $1,049 and up Galaxy Note 10+: $1,099 and up Galaxy Note 10+ 5G: $1,299 and up However, even though Samsung displayed US pricing for all four SKUs, only three of them are available in the US. The smaller Galaxy Note 10 5G will only launch in...
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Sprint is going all-in with 5G wireless connectivity, and has announced that it will make available a fourth 5G-compatible device for its network. The fourth-place wireless carrier – which will soon merge with third-place T-Mobile – already sells the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, LG V50 ThinQ and the HTC 5G Hub. The fourth device will be an unnamed smartphone from OnePlus. The most obvious device that Sprint could introduce is the already announced OnePlus 7 Pro 5G. The OnePlus 7 Pro 5G looks largely identical to its OnePlus 7 Pro counterpart, including its Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC, 6.67-inch 90Hz display, 4000 mAh battery and 256GB of internal storage. The primary...
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Verizon is touting a new lineup of 'Unlimited' plans designed to give customers more options to fit their needs, and on the plus side, they are all $5 less expensive than its current lineup. However, confusion still looms for the average user trying to wade through it all. On top of that, this really serves as a reminder that wireless carries like to play fast and loose with the term "unlimited." According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of unlimited is "lacking any controls." It can also mean "boundless" and "not bounded by exceptions." None of those definitions really apply to Verizon's plans, however, because there are controls. Let's break it down, shall we? Here are the new Unlimited...
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At this point in time, 5G coverage in the United States is pretty much... well, pathetic. While wireless carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile have lit up 5G networks in a few cities across the country, it has mainly been limited to super-fast, and limited-range mmWave rollouts. Verizon claims that it is ready to start accelerating its 5G rollout which up until today has reached less than a dozen major cities. Just yesterday, Verizon expanded service to extremely limited areas of Atlanta, Detroit, Indianapolis and Washington, DC bringing the total number of 5G cities to nine. However, the company is committed to expanding coverage to over 30 cities by the end of 2019....
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While the bulk of attention is being focused on Apple's upcoming 2019 iPhone refresh, there is still a lot that we don't know about the company's smartphones that will arrive in 2020. Thankfully, we're getting some additional insight on what Apple has in the pipeline thanks to reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. It was previously thought that Apple would only introduce 5G connectivity on its two flagship iPhones in 2020 (analogous to today's iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max), while the lesser iPhone XR successor would stick to tried and true 4G LTE connectivity. Kuo now claims, however, that all three models with have 5G connectivity. "Apple has more resource for developing the 5G iPhone after the...
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Apple on Thursday announced that it is acquiring Intel's modem chip business for $1 billion, a move that makes sense for both companies—Apple is dead set on developing as much of its iPhone hardware in-house as humanly possible, and Intel has said on numerous occasions that it is now a datacenter company. What is surprising, however, is Apple's supposed ultra-aggressive timeline for injecting its own 5G modems into some of its hardware. The perhaps unrealistic goal is reportedly set for 2021. Let's take a step back for a moment. As 5G connectivity started coming into view, it looked like Apple and Qualcomm would be partially distracted by years of contentious litigation over 4G LTE and...
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Apple and Qualcomm haven't exactly been the best of friends in recent years, but the former needs the latter's modems for its iPhones. The need for modem chips was part of the reason for the settlement reached between the two companies earlier this year that saw both dropping a number of lawsuits hurled at each other. However, A new report is making the rounds that claims that Apple will purchase Intel's modem business for $1 billion. Reports claim that Apple is "in advanced talks" to buy the Intel modem chip division within the next week. The source of the rumor comes from unnamed people who claim to be familiar with the negotiations cited by The Wall Street Journal. Apple made up...
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AT&T and NVIDIA have announced that they will be working together on the MGM Resorts NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. AT&T has enabled its 5G network in parts of Las Vegas, and it's highlighting the 5G tech in a sponsorship of the NBA Summer League starting with live games earlier this week. The AT&T 5G technology is being leveraged to allow the wireless streaming of high-quality video and game streaming coupled with NVIDIA's GeForce NOW service. AT&T provided its 5G mmWave spectrum with Ericsson as its network infrastructure backbone for the service. The tie-up allowed the streaming of live video from Samsung devices in the stands at the games. The video streamed live from...
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Some of you reading this might actually own a 5G-capable smartphone. Most of you do not. Be that as it may, a recent survey of 2,000 Americans who are at least 18 years old and own a smartphone found that nearly a third of respondents believed they owned a 5G handset, including iPhone owners even though a 5G iPhone does not yet exist. Let us be clear—despite the survey results, 1 in 3 Americans do NOT own a 5G handset. We know this because there are very few 5G smartphones available. For example, Samsung's Galaxy S10 5G only recently debuted, and it starts at $1,299.99. There are a spattering of other 5G options, but not many. Technically, Motorola is among them with its Moto Z3 and Z4,...
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When we think of Samsung's flagship smartphones, we typically envision the Galaxy S series or the Galaxy Note. These smartphones offer the fastest SoCs, innovative display technologies and the latest and greatest features. But as we've seen recently, Samsung is more than willing to bring flagship features down to its mid-range offerings. That will apparently continue with the introduction of the Galaxy A90. According to reliable gadget leaker OnLeaks, Samsung is preparing two versions of the Galaxy A90, and both look to be impressive mid-range smartphones catering to those that like huge displays. The A905 is the standard model accordion to OnLeaks, while A908 refers to the...
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