5g enabled devices. How it works

Which has no complaints. But technology does not stand still.
The future will be much faster with 5G networks and 5G-enabled smartphones. Still, let's be realistic, most of us recently switched from 2G to 3G, and 4G is only appearing in large cities. Accordingly, the 5G network will only make sense when 4G is fully introduced. But now is not about that.

The benefits of the new network are many. Using 5G is like driving a fast car. According to the report, 5G will be 40% better than 4G. Therefore, many companies are working on introducing 5G into their products. In this article, we are going to discuss the best smartphone manufacturers that can launch their smartphones with 5G network support. Having rummaged through the Internet, we realized that 5G technology is still under development and is a concept. However, there are already several companies that may launch their smartphones with 5G in the near future.

Smartphones from Samsung

Samsung will be the first company to try to implement 5G support in its smartphones. According to the news, Samsung is now in the testing phase of the 5G network. In an official post from Samsung, it was noted that during testing of 5G, it turned out that this network is 30 times faster than 4G networks, and such speed is simply amazing. Samsung has determined that 5G speeds are a staggering 7.5Gbps. It’s even hard to imagine how fast the data will load.

Samsung Galaxy S8

We expect the Samsung Galaxy S8, which will soon hit the market, to support 5G network. Perhaps Samsung will want to implement 5G support in future phones from the Galaxy line. Regarding specifications, samsung galaxy The S8 will be equipped with an SD 830 processor and will also ship with or 8GB of RAM. The screen will have a resolution of 4K, but its size is still a mystery.

Nokia

Nokia also took on the introduction of 5G technologies. According to reports, Nokia has tested 5G, and now some devices from Nokia will run on a 5G network that is 40 times faster than its "predecessor" 4G. It allows you to download videos to your tablet or smartphone within a few seconds. A report from NDTV stated that Nokia is currently continuing to work on bringing 5G support to its devices.

Apple smartphones

We must not forget that Apple is still the king of the smartphone industry and we expect the company to do whatever it takes to maintain its reputation. It's widely accepted that Apple puts the best technology into its smartphones, so with 5G technology, Apple likely won't back down either. From the reports provided, it becomes clear that Apple is also working on introducing this technology into its products. Most likely, the company will introduce support for the 5G network in new smartphones, such as the iPhone 7s and 7s plus, and possibly the iPhone 8. But the release of the latter is not expected in the near future.

In this article we will talk about 5G phones - we will give short reviews models that will support the latest technology and release dates. Let's mention the main features of the network - this information will be useful to everyone who follows the development of technology and wants to keep abreast of new products in the telecommunications market.

Technology Description

5G smartphones are designed specifically for next-generation networks - strictly speaking, without these capabilities, they are absolutely useless.
The new generation network demonstrates fantastic mobile Internet speeds, operating at previously unattainable frequencies. Of course, these options can only be implemented if there is certain parameters in mobile technology.
Not so long ago it became known about the plans of operators in Russia. According to a special government program, the launch in the capital and million-plus cities is planned as early as 2019, and widespread distribution is expected in 5-7 years.

mobile brands

At the moment, a number of large companies are working on the introduction of a special 5 ji chip into the phone. We will talk about the expected models and give an approximate timeline for the release of products. Let's add right away that the deadlines are very blurry, nothing is known for sure with this technology!

Also specify: Apple So far, no 5G iPhones have been released. This is due to the fact that the company, having bought out Intel, began to develop its own 5G network. It is possible that such a device will still appear, but already in 2020!

Now we will tell you which smartphones support 5G Internet and when they can be purchased, but we already wrote about it earlier.

Xiaomi

In September 2018, information appeared on the network about the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 smartphone. At the moment, the company has not announced the device, but the president of the corporation said that the test of the new generation of the Internet was successful.

The 5G phone will not appear on sale until 2019, however, the technology in test mode can be launched a little earlier.

Samsung

The Korean giant has announced a partnership with a next-generation Internet developer. The modern modem Exynos Modem 5100 has already been released on the market, supporting the relevant standards.

The company will definitely produce smartphones with support for 5 G, but the exact release dates have not been named. In any case, this will happen no earlier than 2019.
We advise you to take a closer look at the technology article.

Huawei

The corporation was one of the first to announce support for new technologies and began developing phones with 5G support. Representatives of the company said that they are currently waiting for the launch of standards for the announcement of products.

The approximate release date forecast is the end of 2019. The name of the models was not disclosed, but some sources suggest that they will be representatives of the Mate line.

Motorola

The company has already unveiled a 5G smartphone dubbed the Z3 to the public. At the moment, the smartphone cannot be used due to the lack of appropriate operators.

This device will be one of the first to be equipped with the appropriate support. The transition to the network will be available thanks to the built-in module.

ZTE

The Chinese manufacturer has made several announcements about the development of the company and the introduction of technology into phones with a 5G network. At the moment, tests are being carried out - the first models may appear on sale as early as mid-2019.

LG

When looking at which phones support 5G internet, one cannot fail to mention LG products. The launch of the first mobile phones for sale is expected in early 2019. As such, the company did not talk about a specific phone, but we found information about testing networks of this format, which means that the phone is just around the corner!

The list of smartphones with a 5G network does not include Apple products.

Vivo

The Chinese manufacturer has already conducted pilot tests of the new technology on mobile Vivo NEX. The devices are based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 processor and will hit the market in early or mid-2019.

OPPO

Another Chinese manufacturer has also confirmed successful network testing on OPPO R15 smartphones. The devices are equipped with a Qualcomm X50 5G modem operating under the 3GPP Release 15 NSA standard. The manufacturer plans to become one of the pioneers of the market - the models will appear on free sale in 2019.

Please note that 5G phones will be included in premium price category– no need to count on the low cost of the flagship line. The widespread adoption of technology in low-cost phones will not happen soon. But this is of course just our opinion, so it is possible that the cost of the phones will not differ much!

On the Internet, we found such a cool table, which very clearly outlines the description of all networks, in the order of appearance - we advise you to study it too!

Here is another small table where you can see what else it is planned to use the new Internet networks for!

That's all, thank you very much for your attention, for reading our article to the end! We are looking forward to new networks and new phones! This should be an explosion in the technology market, right?
Do you need your phone, and what kind of device it is, read on!

No one argues that it is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick. But, when network resources are limited, data transmission methods that are asymmetric in speed appear. The most famous and illustrative example of this approach is ADSL (remember the fast download, and the "rotten" home Internet for return?), And now - a mobile communication channel. For example, the ideal version of LTE involves up to 326.4 Mbps for download and up to 172.8 Mbps for upload. In reality, we are content with a much less cool 4G connection.

And, although operators are building a 4G network at an accelerated pace, it doesn’t get easier for them, because God bless it, with download speeds (which LTE often has enough for videos in HD resolution), but since 2014 the number of downloaded and transmitted information - 54% growth every year.

Mobile phone users increasingly like to give away rather than download

How does it work? But like this:

selfie cameras have dramatically increased in resolution. A couple of years ago, 1.3, a maximum of 2 megapixels, was enough for everyone. Since then, even the conservative iPhone front camera resolution has increased 5 times.
display resolution and, as a result, video resolution. Full HD in mobile phones has become consumer goods, budget smartphones have long acquired HD screens, and not only desperate and wildly rich guys, but also ordinary workers began to transmit videos in 1080p.

Qualcomm, MTS and Huawei talk about the refinement of LTE networks in Primorsky Krai

no one is embarrassed to be a “mobile reporter” anymore - YouTube and Instagram are increasingly uploading data using 4G, and someone even broadcasts live on Periscope. A separate “operator’s hell” is sports events and concerts, when thousands of smartphones simultaneously try to transfer an array of photos and videos “outside”.
cloud backups. The good, sweet tradition of depriving mobile phones of a memory card slot is especially good because if a smartphone dies / “glitches”, it will take all the photos, music, documents and videos on the internal drive with it to the grave. Therefore, many mobile phone owners play it safe and turn on file backups to the cloud via LTE.

Cellular networks have to be rebuilt for data transmission at events

Due to what we will be rolled out even faster LTE?

Of course, operators could simply advise subscribers, they say, “don’t go crazy and don’t force 4G networks with tasks that require Wi-Fi and wired Internet”, but such frankness is suicide for the advertising department, and even pulling users from operators -competitors need. Therefore, for the sake of those who like to stream / share data from a mobile phone, chipset manufacturers (those who are popularly called “processors”) in mobile phones, manufacturers of stuffing for cell towers and other equipment of the operator and the management of the telecom operators themselves run, fuss and try to make cellular networks faster. The main activist of such an undertaking on the global stage is Qualcomm (which understands that you won’t become the coolest manufacturer only at the expense of Antut). In Russia, he is helped by Huawei's network division (not to be confused with the guys who design mobile phones) and MTS, which is now making huge injections to rebuild its, in many ways, the oldest cellular network in Russia under the latest LTE "chips".

In general, 4G and LTE in particular is not a “cast in granite” technology that was created once and then “stamped” in the same form throughout the country. Since 2011, when LTE was formalized as one of the varieties of 4G communications, it has been refined in all directions, and each such refinement is called a “release”. Something like updates that arrive on your Windows every week.

The answer to the question "why do we need gigabit in LTE?"

When we Internet users see a new 4G-enabled cell phone suddenly being faster than an old one (also 4G-enabled), we just think to ourselves “probably %vendor_2% puts better stuff than %vendor_1%”. But in fact, the new mobile phone uses the “bells and whistles” from the new revisions of LTE and therefore grabs more speed from the same base stations. There are several branches of such LTE improvements today:

"Bundling Carriers". This is, by and large, a software refinement, and it lies in the fact that the base station constructs a wider range of operating frequencies for mobile phones than originally intended. Not necessarily in a sequential way (frequencies can be "pulled" in a wide range) - the main thing is that such a multi-channel data transmission can include up to 5 carriers, and all of them will "pour" data into the mobile phone without additional financial costs from the operator. The main thing is that the smartphone also understands such tricks from the base station. Dual carrier aggregation today is even in inexpensive Snapdragon 400-series (in your Redmi 3S, for example) for an incoming connection. But now Qualcomm is rolling out the same system for uploading rather than downloading data.

Carrier aggregation is a way to give your smartphone a wider data channel.

Higher order modulation. The data lane is such a freeway. It is clear that the wider the steeper, but the amount of delivered goods (traffic) depends on the carrying capacity of each individual vehicle. The higher the modulation, the larger “chunks” of data the smartphone and the base station can transfer to each other over the same data channel. For example, when switching from QAM-16 to QAM-64 modulation, a smartphone will be able to receive / send not 4 bytes, but 6 bytes in the same period of time. Here is the speed boost.

High order modulation allows more data to be sent in the same amount of time

In general, modulation is not a constant value, it constantly “jumps” between different modes depending on the quality of the connection between your mobile phone and the cell tower. And if it is difficult to make the tower more “punchy”, then modems with a good signal-to-noise ratio have the ability to work faster in the same conditions. This, for example, is the trick with the release of new processors with the same cores and video accelerator frequencies - the difference will lie not in the "parrots", but in the quality of the connection.

MIMO. Not "past" (like the soldiers at the shooting range or from excitement on their wedding night), but "maimo". In the philistine understanding, the technology is presented as “look how many antennas we piled into our router!”, Although the essence is not in the palisade of “pipes”, but in the logic of their work.

MIMO: multiple antennas for better signal speed and stability

And the bottom line is that radio waves in urban areas are not transmitted in an ideal way, they reach the subscriber especially hard if he rushes somewhere on the edge of the base station coverage area. MIMO is a way to spread the data stream over multiple antennas in order to increase signal speed and stability over the same frequency spectrum. This method differs from the combination of carriers, as several tubes in a cocktail differ from a pack of juice with a cut off top wall.

Ultra-fast "return" in 4G networks for Russia

If you have read up to this paragraph, the following terms will not seem like “alien slang” or who knows what buzzwords to you. Qualcomm's LTE tuning theory has been told passionately and for a long time, but all the "chips" were introduced too slowly and in stages for the company to have something to show journalists clearly. But the refinement of the data transfer rate in LTE was shown by the Californians for the first time in Russia (and Eastern Europe as well) in the glorious city of Vladivostok.

Why in it? Because Primorsky Krai will become a "pilot" region for new 4G-LTE specifications - with multi-level buildings, elevation changes, hills and the sea, signalmen will have the most "combat" and difficult conditions for signal testing. If anyone is not in the know, before the Far East was the first region with a "pumped" version of 3G, and the launch of LTE was also "rehearsed" in these parts.

The essence of the demonstration was that the improvements from the previous paragraph were “screwed” to the outgoing LTE connection. That is, the frequencies of 1800 MHz and 2600 MHz in the MTS network were combined, and the band between the terminal and the base station expanded to 15 MHz, and 64-QAM modulation was used for data transmission. With such parameters in the line of sight between the "smartphone" and the base station, the outgoing speed is kept at around 48 Mbps. Not "in a jump" and only for Speedtest, but stable 48 megabits.

Dual carrier aggregation upstream speed, 15 MHz bandwidth, 64-QAM modulation, Snapdragon X16 modem, MIMO4x4

The terminal, or "receiver", in other words, was an engineering prototype, that is, like a smartphone with demonstration "offal". Its filling: the familiar Snapdragon 820 and a discrete (that is, connected in a separate order) Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 modem (will be in all new Snapdragon 800 chipsets) with four antennas.

Fans of steep incoming speeds were also “oiled” - with 256-QAM modulation with four antennas in MIMO4x4 and three carrier aggregation at a frequency of 2600 MHz, a regular Qualcomm Snapdragon X12 modem (available in absolutely any smartphone with Snapdragon 820) squeezed out from 127 to 150 Mbps appointment. From the side of the base station worked network hardware Huawei with support for 256-QAM, MIMO4x4 and 4T4R radio modules (4 senders - 4 receivers).

Dual carrier aggregation downstream rate, 15 MHz bandwidth, 64-QAM modulation, Snapdragon X12 modem, MIMO4x4

By and large, the “256-QAM, MIMO4x4” parameters, when aggregating three carriers, can squeeze out up to a gigabit over the air (how many megabits are there in your home internet?). In practice, in cities with an influx of subscribers, it will be less, but there will be an increase in comparison with the current LTE in Russia, and it will be very large. There are, however, several problems on the way to a brighter future:

Operators are eager to advertise the increased connection speed, but are not eager to invest in all the bells and whistles of 4.5G (that is, LTE-Advanced, which I am telling you about today). At first, they will use "bloodless" software improvements, like three-carrier aggregation (data is already being transmitted on two carriers today), and all the improvements that require equipment replacement will be "sometime later", because the crisis and the ruble income from subscribers to buy equipment for dollars today is not easy.
You won't be fed up with Qualcomm alone - it would be nice if other chips supported at least some of the technologies on the way to gigabit LTE. In Exynos, things are tight with this, in Huawei the most-most Kirin 960 (such is in Mate 9) can only do MIMO4x4 when combining two carriers, but QAM-256 also supports it. Things are even worse for Kirin 950/955, as in MediaTek's "supermodels".
Qualcomm, and even its competitors, don’t have modems capable of shoveling data at gigabit speeds yet (they promise that it will be in 2017). But there is a modem for the future - strictly under 4G / 5G. We'll talk about him.

Snapdragon 820 based Qualcomm terminal (with Snapdragon X12 modem and Snapdragon X16 plug-in)

Why do we need 5G if LTE is overclocked to gigabit?

I repeat once again - 5G is not being developed for speed records, although it will be advertised with such an eye. This network standard is designed taking into account the realities, when access to the mobile Internet is received not only by mobile phones (there are already prohibitively many of them), but also smart watch, irons, drones, unmanned vehicles and other devices that are still little talked about. Muscovites will not let you lie: after the capital's cellular networks became almost completely filled with 3G-enabled phones, data transmission to HSPA + practically "died" due to network congestion. 4G has a slightly higher margin of safety, but there are more gadgets with LTE support today than 3G smartphones in the past. Further, it will only get worse, so you need to think not about speed, but about the fact that the mobile Internet does not die from overcrowding with subscribers.

There are many "goodies" in it:

combining eight (!) carriers for data transmission, that is, a very wide channel for data transmission
the ability to work in the unlicensed spectrum. These are frequencies that do not require you to bow at the feet of state guards and participate in tenders. That is, not "polluted air", which can be used for faster data transfer in mobile networks
adaptive shaping and ray tracing. If without tediousness, the modem will be much better at catching a signal where it is difficult for the signal to get through to the subscriber
the ability to work in the millimeter wave range. That is, good “range” where things were not so good with 3G and 4G due to the distance to the base station.

Your toddlers will find 5G in elementary grades

Communication of the fifth generation is serious and for a long time. Qualcomm predicts that the first gadgets with 5G support will appear only in 2018, and only after that telecom operators will start building new networks on the rights of a “bright future” (which LTE was recently for Russians). For a “look” at a wide audience, 5G will become available in 2019, and new generation communications will become a familiar and widely used technology in 2020-2022. That is, six years later, if you count from the date of writing this article.

Another thing is important - with the advent of cellular networks, 5G will inevitably kick out one of its predecessors. LTE will be a relatively modern foundation cellular communication, it will definitely not be touched, and two options remain:

2g. The most likely candidate for killing. Development of the late 1980s, early 1990s. A super-common communication technology, without which not only all push-button mobile phones will “die”, but also faxes, as well as some smartphones / communicators of the Paleolithic era, corporate mobile phones in monstrous “offices”, part of the equipment in call centers.
3G. Too slow for data in the 5G era, and EDGE voice is already working where 3G has never been. But the release of 3G frequencies in favor of 5G will hit a lot more gadgets. Are you aware that your smartphones are switching from LTE to 3G for voice calls? VoLTE

02/17/2017, Fri, 13:08, Moscow time , Text: Vladimir Bakhur

ZTE has announced the first "smartphone of the 5G generation" with mobile Internet access at gigabit speeds. The novelty will be shown live for the first time at the MWC2017 forum in Barcelona in 10 days. This is the world's first announced 5G smartphone.

The first smartphone with the Internet at the speed of "Gigabit Class"

ZTE Mobile Devices, a division of the ZTE concern, has officially unveiled a new generation of smartphones with the “talking” name ZTE Gigabit Phone. The release of the device marks the forthcoming emergence of fifth-generation mobile networks - 5G, which will support data exchange rates of more than 1 Gb / s.

No technical data on the construction, design or characteristics of the smartphone Gigabit Phone company ZTE has not yet reported. Details about the new product will be announced as part of the Mobile World Congress 2017 (MWC) forum, which will be held in Barcelona from February 27 to March 2.

Nevertheless, the introduction of the ZTE Gigabit Phone is the world's first announcement of a smartphone designed to work in 5G networks.

There are no networks yet, but the phone is already there

Despite the lack of official characteristics of the Gigabit Phone smartphone, it can already be said that ZTE has a small choice of hardware, since the only officially presented mobile processor for 5G networks to date is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 chip.

The chip, manufactured at Samsung's 10nm process technology, is based on the Qualcomm Kryo 280 compute core, Adreno 540 graphics core, and has a 35% reduced size and 25% reduced power consumption compared to the previous generation of chips. In addition, the processor contains an X16 LTE cellular modem with support for LTE Cat. 16 (receive) and LTE Cat. 13 (upload), capable of providing speeds up to 1 Gbps for download and up to 150 Mbps for data transfer.

Another option for the radio frequency interface in the ZTE Gigabit Phone smartphone can be the same Qualcomm discrete dual-chip Snapdragon X50 5G modem for use in mobile multi-mode 4G / 5G gadgets and stationary wireless devices. The X50 5G logic set supports orthogonal multiplexing (OFDM) frequency division technology and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antennas with radiation tracking and adaptive beamforming technology, which provide reliable and stable mobile communications during signal propagation without line-of-sight (Non-Line-of-Sight, NLOS).

Work in a 5G network without line of sight

Qualcomm Technologies is currently offering the Snapdragon X50 5G modem to carriers deploying their 5G networks for testing and field trials in the early stages of implementation.

Prospects for the development of 5G mobile networks

Mass deployment of 5G networks with commercial coverage is expected earlier than 2020, however, in a number of countries it is planned to launch separate network segments in capitals and large cities as early as 2018. For example, the Swedish operator Telia plans to provide 5G services to subscribers in Stockholm and Tallinn already in 2018, Telia, together with Ericsson, is already testing a 5G system in an active outdoor network in the Swedish city of Chista based on Telia's commercial network. During the tests, a peak speed of 15 Gb / s per user was achieved, and the network response time was less than 3 ms. This improves the peak performance of current 4G networks by more than 40 times.

5G mmWave technologies

The development and testing of fifth-generation products is currently being carried out by many companies in the industry, the preparation of frequencies and the corresponding infrastructure is being carried out in most countries, including Russia.

Last week about the launch of a new technology of broadband Internet access 10GPON, providing speeds up to 10 Gbps. The project, estimated at 10 billion rubles, will become the basis for the launch of the 5G mobile network of the MTS operator, which will presumably be deployed to connect sports facilities as part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

The developers of new mobile network standards especially emphasize that the 5G generation cannot be habitually evaluated by a single traditional parameter - data transfer speed. For 5G networks, communication stability in conditions of a large number of subscribers within the range of the base station, low power consumption, and a number of other parameters are also important. To meet all these conditions, a new generation of base stations and complex antenna structures with program control are currently being developed.

In December 2017, the first fifth-generation cellular communication standard was finally certified. Work on the study and implementation of high-speed 5G standards was carried out by large operators and equipment manufacturers before, but pilot experiments were not of a universal nature. However, the creation of interoperable networks ready for commercial operation became possible only after the approval by the 3GPP consortium of the specifications of a single communication standard Non-Standalone 5G NR (New Radio).

The 5G specifications include support for multiple radio frequency bands. They include the low-frequency spectrum of 600-700 MHz, the mid-frequency spectrum of 3.5 GHz and the high-frequency spectrum of 50 GHz. Such a choice will make fifth-generation networks suitable for use in various conditions, from sparsely populated open areas (like the steppes of Mongolia) to crowded places (offices, malls, stadiums, concert halls). Peak 5G speeds should reach 20 Gb/s for downloading data by the subscriber, and up to 10 Gb/s for transmission.

Manufacturers of cellular equipment immediately drew attention to the new standard and took up its practical implementation. Major mobile modem manufacturers such as Qualcomm, Intel, Huawei introduced the first non-Standalone 5G NR-compliant products shortly after the adoption of the Non-Standalone 5G NR standard. Major US operators have announced plans to create the first commercial fifth-generation networks as early as this year, and studies and tests are being actively conducted in other countries.

Several companies have announced the creation of 5G modems for smartphones. Qualcomm has unveiled the new Snapdragon X50 5G NR cellular module, which will be installed in at least 2 dozen devices of well-known brands, including Asus, Nokia, HTC, LG, Oppo, Sharp, Sony, Vivo, Xiaomi and ZTE. Huawei at MWC 2018 presented the Balong 5G01 modem, focused on commercial use in phones.

At Intel, the XMM 8060 became the first chip to work with 5G. The emergence of smartphones supporting 5G is just around the corner. About devices that should become the first swallows on the market, and will be discussed.

HTC U12 (Imagine)

One of the first smartphones to receive support for 5G networks may be the new flagship HTC U12, codenamed Imagine. The official release of the device has not yet been, it is scheduled for May, but information about some of the parameters and live photos of the device are already on the network. There are also videos showing the testing of the smartphone in 5G networks by the Taiwanese operator Chunghwa Telecom, conducted during the presentation of the Taiwan 5G Industry Alliance.

According to various sources, the HTC U12 will get a 6" screen with 18:9 aspect ratio, dual cameras front and back, a water-resistant glass body. The chipset of the device should be Snapdragon 845. This fact raises the question of what 5G standard will be use HTC in its flagship, because the Snapdragon X20 communication module included in the SD845 does not support 5G NR, and the production of the next generation modem (Snapdragon X50) has not yet been established. NR rather use some kind of technology.

Smartphone HTC U12

ZTE Gigabit Phone

ZTE showed a prototype of the Gigabit Phone smartphone more than a year ago, back at MWC 2017. This device was a test sample, not a production model, so it makes no sense to mention its characteristics, except for the Snapdragon 835 chipset. Support for networks with a data transfer rate of more than 1 Gb / s (and this is the condition for classifying the standard as a fifth generation) is implemented on the basis of the Pre5G Giga + MBB standard developed by ZTE. It is a transitional technology from 4G to 5G and provides a connection speed sufficient for broadcasting 360-degree video and video in 4K or 8K.

Serial samples of smartphones with 5G ZTE plans to release in 2018. This was announced by the head of the company Lixin Cheng (Lixin Chen) in an interview with Bloomberg News. He did not give details, but we can expect that the device will connect to the new generation networks according to the proprietary Pre5G Giga + MBB standard.

Smartphone ZTE Gigabit Phone

Hisense 5G

The Chinese corporation Hisense, although not very well known in Russia (only its TVs are on sale), is included in the TOP of the largest companies in the Middle Kingdom. In April 2018, one of the leaders of the corporation, Fang Xueyu, announced plans to release the first smartphone with 5G by 2019. At the moment, nothing is known about the characteristics and capabilities of the device, but, according to the manager, the development of the device will start soon. Given the scale of the company's activities and cooperation with major operators, Chinese subscribers have a real prospect to evaluate 5G as early as next year.

Smartphone Hisense 5G

Huawei 5G Smartphone

Another major Chinese corporation, Huawei, announced on April 18 its plans to launch a 5G smartphone. The device should receive a modem of its own design (perhaps the same Balong 5G01) integrated into the HiSilicon Kirin chipset. The release of the first Huawei smartphone with 5G support is scheduled for the second half of 2019. There is no data on the characteristics of the device under development, we can only assume that it will be the flagship Huawei Mate 30.

When will the first mass-market smartphones supporting 5G come out?

All manufacturers who have announced plans to release 5G smartphones soon do not go into specifics. Given the novelty of the universal 5G NR standard (only six months have passed since its publication), the devices listed in the selection (except for Huawei, which is not even in the prototype stage yet) do not belong to this standard. They must provide data transfer rates in excess of gigabit per second, which allows them to be nominally classified as 5G. However, it is more correct to call these technologies 4.75G, by analogy with the 3.75G HSPA + Evolution standard, which is formally capable of providing the speed of the 4th generation, but is an upgrade to 3G.

It is unlikely that the first mass-produced smartphones supporting full and universal 5G networks operating on the 3GPP-approved 5G NR standard will appear in 2018. Huawei and Qualcomm are ready to start mass production of the corresponding modems only by 2019. It is not excluded the appearance of devices with a cellular Intel module XMM 8060, but it is quite large by the standards of a smartphone. Because of this, only laptops and / or tablets with an Intel 5G modem seem more realistic in 2018.

The first mainstream smartphones with 5G support will be the flagships of 2019-2020, with the next generation Qualcomm Snapdragpn 855 and Hisilicon Kirin chipsets. They may turn out to be Samsung Galaxy S10 and Note 10, Xiaomi Mi8, Nokia 10 and other devices, but so far this is all at the level of rumors, conjectures and assumptions.