The first 5G phone: our contact with the future of smartphones

4: 4-12: 30 Paris time: Back in the rain to see how long it would take to download The Raid Redemption to 446 MB on the 5G network, we gave up after 2 minutes and 30 seconds that had only accumulated 44 MB. A quick speed test showed the lowest speeds we've seen all day at 59.9 Mbps. What's more, to download an entire season of TV shows before taking off from a flight, we could not even download Iko Uwais kicking his first bad.

4/4, 12:08 pm: Entered the grocery store on the same corner and could not have 5G even sitting next to a window near this corner.

04/04, 11:56 CT: Take the Moto Z3 for a walk in the west loop, because the 5G signal could not bother to join me on this cold and rainy day. We found a corner closer to The Loop with a 5G signal, although it was still irregular. Performed a speed test that reached 448 Mbps downstream with a response time of 19 ms.

We literally tinkered with the world's first 5G phone when we slapped the recently launched 5G Moto Mod on the back of an existing 4G phone.

And it is indeed faster, according to our 5G field tests using the Moto Z3, last year's 4G LTE phone, which can be upgraded to 5G to support the new 5G additive. Yes, the 5G service is here, and it meets in pieces.

We could buy the 5G Mod in exactly one Chicago store on launch day, and it came out faster than expected. Verizon and Motorola surpbaded their initial launch on April 11 to become the leading manufacturer and supplier of 5G phones, surpbading Samsung's planned launch on April 5 in Korea. Smart.

While this makes Verizon and Motorola the world's first 5Gs, the question is, what does this really mean for all of us, people using the first 5G phone on the first 5G network, available only in US cities.

We will provide live updates throughout our tests as we will spend more time seeing what the first 5G phone and the first 5G cellular network can and can not handle.

What was needed to get 5G service

The activation of Verizon on its 5G network is far from being a big launch. Officially, the network is only active in Chicago, Illinois and Minneapolis, Wisconsin. Although Chicago is an important city and Minneapolis is not small, the actual availability of 5G in each city is still limited.

For the moment, only a handful of rooms in Chicago is covered by the 5G network and Verizon has not published any coverage card for the benefit of customers. These are dense areas of Chicago, including Magnificent Mile (specifically Verizon Store), Gold Coast, Old Town, River North and parts of South Loop and West Loop. Milwaukee's 5G coverage areas are located in West Central, Central East, Elliot Park and the Verizon Store of the Mall of America.

In addition to the hands-on activities in the Magnificent Mile Verizon Store where the launch event took place, we knew that it would be difficult to experience the 5G in the wild.

We needed both the Moto Z3, the 5G Moto Mod, an unlimited Verizon data plan, and we had to pay a special $ 10 5G service charge in addition to the data plan to access the network. 5G. In the end, the equipment cost us $ 749 at the store (without opting for a contract with discounts), and the service will cost about $ 100 a month.

Without further ado, let's get on with business: is it really faster?

5G vs. 4G LTE Speeds

In the Verizon Store where the launch event took place, a 5G node was set up front. And, with a short distance between the Moto Z3 and the node, with a line of sight, the aircraft managed to reach 651 Mbps downstream. Compare this to a later test on the 4G network that reached 213 Mbps downstream. Meanwhile, upstream data actually uses only 4G, so there is no speed increase.

How does this speed translate into actual performance?

All 1080p videos on YouTube began to be read quickly when we flipped through one after the other. Scrolling the duration of each video caused a momentary pause before resuming playback. However, after switching to 4G, we did not see much difference in doing the same thing.

Since most of us do not use our mobile network only to perform speed tests, we jumped directly to the Play Store to download the mbadive 1.81 GB PUBG Mobile game. On the 5G network, the download took a little less than 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Repeating the download on the 4G network, the download took 6 minutes and 8 seconds.

Thus, although the 5G network is clearly the faster of the two, it is not an order of magnitude.

5G reliability

Chicago Benefits: Transit, Lake Access, 5G … pic.twitter.com/Z7xMNHxgc3April 3, 2019

During our initial work, we seriously questioned the reliability of Verizon's 5G network.

Take the Verizon Store Store where the event took place: it measured just 30 feet wide and 100 feet back, with a 5G knot at the front of the building. Reception was uneven at the back and could even stop near the front. We noticed that the Moto Z3 went from 5G to 4G LTE several times as we traveled, and we had to check that our speed tests were 5G.

As we test 5G connectivity next week throughout the Chicago area, we will be testing whether millimeter-wave technology used by Verizon for its 5G network will be able to penetrate obstacles and walls. The absence of a defined 5G map is also a problem because whenever we do not get the 5G, we wonder if that is because it does not happen. There is no signal in the zone or if the phone simply does not answer.

We will continue to test the advent of 5G in Chicago this week, so stay tuned for updates on how the service works for us and on the maximum speeds we're reaching. When it works and where it works, it is certainly faster than 4G LTE; The future of smartphones is here, but not everywhere.