OnePlus has been one of those companies that went from being relatively unheard of to battling with the best of them in the smartphone industry. Their flagship OnePlus 6T has been reviewed as having a balanced set of features for the perfect price. Now the company is setting their sights on another ambitious goal: 5G.
As the caption says, 5G will be bigger than 4G, but it will also be more expensive (Image Credits: XDA Developers)
At the recently held Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit, the hot topic, of course, was 5G. Now the obstacle to 5G has been that there were no chips that could support the new network. This was overcome with the announcement of the Snapdragon 855. The latest flagship Qualcomm processor will make its way to almost all of 2019’s new flagship smartphones including OnePlus’s yet-to-be-named flagship device. But there’s a catch.
5G phones are not going to be cheap
According to Pete Lau – CEO of OnePlus, the next flagship of OnePlus that has 5G will cost around $200 to $300 more. Why? Because of the technology involved. For example, a particularly tough challenge for OnePlus would be to build a 5G smartphone for multiple cellular carries that work on different frequencies. According to Pete, the process would be considerably more difficult than switching from one 4G carrier to another 4G carrier.
Building a smartphone for multiple cellular carries that work on different frequencies for 5G is going to be particularly challenging (Image Credits: GSMA)
For now, OnePlus is only targeting the sub-6 spectrum for 5G used by EE which is a British mobile operator. As such, the flagship OnePlus 5G smartphone would launch first in Europe. “We’re confident we’ll be the first 5G phone in Europe,” Pete added.
What about existing 4G OnePlus devices?
According to Pete, because 5G smartphones are going to be a separate lineup of phones, support for existing 4G enabled smartphones will continue to coexist. This is because 5G won’t be available worldwide by next year.
The 5G device by OnePlus might also forgo some of its looks for functionality. “On the product level, it’s much more complex than 4G, so a significantly higher level of challenge, especially millimeter wave,” added Pete. The millimeter wave occupies the frequency spectrum from 30GNz to 300GHz.
4G smartphones will continue to exist alongside the upcoming 5G smartphones (Image Credits: Android Central)
The challenge here is to fit multiple antennas into the device. For example, Motorola had to place their 5G Moto Mod’s four antennas in various different orientations so that the user could hold the device from any number of angles without blocking the signal.
Regardless of the price of the phone, OnePlus is determined to launch a 5G phone for customers. According to Pete, it’s vital to get the device out as quickly as possible so that the engineers at OnePlus can fine tune all the details with 5G which would benefit future 5G smartphones.
Is 5G a viable option for Sri Lanka?
Well, that is quite a good question. For starters, Sri Lanka’s low population density means that there are certain areas with no signal coverage whatsoever for 4G access. 5G networks are also not likely to be cheap. With carriers in the US and Europe spending billions of dollars upgrading their network infrastructures, we can expect the same to happen in Sri Lanka.
Setting up 5G infrastructure in Sri Lanka is not going to be cheap at all. But is it worth it? (Image Credits: Construction Review Online)
Even if telecom operators did go and spend trillions of rupees on setting up 5G infrastructure, the time taken to regain that would be enormous. Added to that, the costs of implementing 5G would be pass down to the consumer. So in short, 5G would be really expensive for early 5G access, Most carriers in the US and Europe and related countries have admitted that the first 5G smartphones will be carrier exclusives. So, his means that the first 5G flagship Android devices will be priced out of the range of most consumers.
What do you feel about 5G in Sri Lanka? Leave a comment below. You can also read more about the Qualcomm 2018 Tech Summit here.
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