Published in Mobiles

High end phones in 2019 will be 5G NR

by on20 December 2017


Most of them

We are wrapping up an exciting 2017 and we are about to kick start 2018 with a high speed  CES  in early January. But what about 2019? According to well-placed industry sources, most phones launching in 2019 will be able to support 5G NR.

5G NR stands for the 3GPP official 5G new rradio standard that will be shared between SoC manufacturers, carriers and the network equipment suppliers. Just like 3G and 4G / LTE were standardized, the same thing will happen with 5G and of course that is what 5G NR stands for. 

The high-end phones of 2019 will be able to support 5G NR - at least the Android ones. It will be up to the manufacturers to decide if they want to kick start  5G ready phones in 2019 and our sources are confident that most of them will jump on this bandwagon.

Peter Carlson, a director and 5G evangelist,and Cristiano Amon EVP and President of QCT at Qualcomm,  mentioned repeatedlyduring this year that  Qualcomm’s 5G NR solution will be ready in 2019. That is the current plan and the fact that we saw 5G NR prototype phone in October 2017 brings quite a high level of confidence that 5G NR is much closer than many expect.

As for 2020 phones, 5G won’t be optional at the high end,  and everyone will have to play along just to stay competitive. Apple will of course do whatever Apple wants as it is a company that can sell 100s of millions of high end phones in a quarter.

5G NR must in 2020

Apple can choose to continue its  two-supplier strategy and have iPhones with Intel and Qualcomm 5G NR solutions, but Intel might not be ready for 2019 for its 5G NR. Since Apple usually lags behind in technology, we would not be surprised to see Apple only supporting 5G NR in 2020 when it won’t really have any other choice.

People who like to introduce the latest greatest technology including Samsung, Meizu and One Plus are the likely candidates. We cannot confirm this, but it seems that these three always have the latest and the greatest on their phones. LG decided that Snapdragon 821 will be enough for 2017, resulting in a terrible fail in 2018. The market wants the latest and greatest tech and most Android phone manufacturers supply that.

4G has changed the way we communicate and brought fast internet on our phones. Before 4G, there wasn’t really a smartphone, and now you cannot live without one.

5G will bring a new level of fast, low latency and the most important innovations. It will all start with a high end Android phones in 2019.

Last modified on 20 December 2017
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