I don’t want to see 5G on any phone in 2023. Why? It’s a complete waste of space, no one really uses it, and it means absolutely nothing to the average man on the street. Still, it’s been a regular feature on new phones for years.
Before everyone gets upset and starts sending angry emails, I’m not talking about 5G, I’m talking about the tiresome practice of appending 5G to the end of a phone’s name. We get it, it has 5G. So are the vast majority of phones and it’s time to separate the have-nots from the have-haves.
It’s more than enough
Samsung Galaxy S10 5G. Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends
At the beginning of 2019, there were only a few smartphones that could connect to the 5G network. Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, LG V50 ThinQ 5G and OnePlus 7 Pro 5G to name a few. They were different devices, famous for having a 5G capable modem inside, and you’d have to really try to go out and buy them. Separating them from their 4G cousins by adding 5G to the name made sense. It made sense.
After all, 4G smartphones were still the norm. It was responsible to let potential buyers know they were looking at a 5G-ready phone, as they were significantly more expensive than their 4G counterparts and 5G signal wasn’t common. The massive Galaxy S10 5G cost $1,300 at launch, while the 4G Galaxy S10 Plus cost $1,000, so highlighting the primary reason for the higher price at every opportunity was the right thing to do.
5G was new, it was different, and it was advertised as the future. It was important to get it out there quickly and into the general awareness – mostly because of the huge amount of investment companies like Qualcomm, Samsung and Huawei were putting into it at the time. Putting the 5G name on everything that was coming made sense from a business perspective. But those days are gone and now it’s just pointless and messy.
We don’t need reminding that 5G comes as standard
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Here’s what I mean. We can call it OnePlus 10 Pro, Galaxy S22 Ultra and Motorola Moto G (2022). But the full names, as stated on their websites, are OnePlus 10 Pro 5G, Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G and Moto G 5G (2022). These are just a few examples, but I’m not going to list every phone with 5G in the name here. I have no space, no time, no patience for such an undertaking. What’s frustrating is that you can be pretty sure any smartphone above a certain price point will have 5G today, so why stress about it?
I was wondering if adding 5G to the name was a condition of the license agreement with Qualcomm, and it still may be, but there is an inconsistency in the product range, and some (but not all) MediaTek phones also get 5G attached to their names, which makes me think otherwise .
Andy Boxall/Digital Trends
For example, the Realme GT 2 Pro doesn’t have 5G in its name, but it does have a 5G modem and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. However, Realme 9 with Snapdragon 695 chip and 5G is listed as Realme 9 5G. The Galaxy S21 in the UK came with a Samsung Exynos 2100 processor, but was still called the Galaxy S21 5G, just like the Snapdragon version sold in North America. The full name of the MediaTek-powered OnePlus Nord 2T is also the Nord 2T 5G. I wouldn’t change my mind if it turned out to be licensing, because that wouldn’t stop it from being an outdated and pointless practice.
Nor is it a trend that will die out as we leave 2022 behind. One of the first smartphones we know about officially, coming in early 2023, the OnePlus 11, is really called OnePlus 11 5G. I’m not at all shocked that the OnePlus 11 will have 5G, and I’d be far from it more shocked if not. Since almost all mid-range and flagship phones today have 5G, we’re at a point where singling out the ones that don’t have it would be far more affordable and meaningful for customers.
It’s time to bring back 4G
Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends
When I was looking at phones for this story, I found that there are six different Realme 9 phones available on the company’s website. Only two of them have 5G in the name, but four of the six phones have 5G modems. This is silly, but I’m not worried about the confusing range, as that’s a topic for another story. Realme 9 and Realme 9i without 5G worry me because they actually show the way forward here.
Most people will want a smartphone with built-in 5G, at the very least for longevity. We’re approaching four years since the Galaxy S10 5G came out and we really needed a special tag at the end of the name. No tag needed in 2023. Instead, let’s start tagging phones now that I don’t have 5G — a feature that is now considered standard. Those two Realme phones that do not have 5G are the minority in the product range and it would be much more logical to call them Realme 9 4G and Realme 9i 4G.
Instead, let’s start labeling phones that don’t have 5G now.
5G is no longer a point of differentiation, and shouting it out by elongating already complicated phone names doesn’t help or inform anyone. Nobody actually says that. “I’ve got the new Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G” aren’t words you’ll ever hear, not least because there isn’t one without 5G available, making 5G completely moot. If the licensing agreement is the cause of this name frenzy, it needs to be changed. If this is the habit of manufacturers, then marketing departments need to give up, in cold blood, today.
To help them do that, just get them to start putting 4G on phones that don’t have 5G. That might help with at least one purchase in the future, and that’s more than enough if you put 5G on the end of the name of the next high-end phone.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn