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

4/4, 12:30 CT: Popping back out in the rain to see how long it would take to download Raid Redemption at 446MB on the 5G network, we gave up after 2 minutes and 30 seconds who only had the net 44MB. A fast speed test showed the lowest speeds we had seen all day at 59.9 Mbps. Don't worry about downloading an entire TV season before a plane takes off, we couldn't even download Iko Uwais who kicks his first ass.

4/4, 12:08 pm CT: Went into the grocery store there the same corner and could not get 5G to sit next to a window near that corner.

4/4, 11:56 CT : Took the Moto Z3 out on a tour of the West Loop, because the 5G signal couldn't bother to stay with me indoors on this cold and rainy day. Found a corner closer to The Loop which had 5G signal, though it was still spotty. Ran a speed test that beat 448Mbps downstream with a 1[ads1]9ms ping time.

We literally cobbled together the world's first 5G phone when we hit the newly launched 5G Moto Mod on the back of an existing 4G phone.

And it's actually faster, according to our 5G test due to the Moto Z3, last year's 4G LTE phone that can be upgraded to the 5G care of the new 5G add-on. Yes, the 5G service is here and it comes together in bits.

We could buy 5G Mod at a Chicago store on the launch day and it came out faster than anyone had expected. Verizon and Motorola jumped ahead of their original April 11 launch to become the first to the 5G phone manufacturer and operator, and beat Samsung's scheduled April 5 launch in Korea. Crafty.

Although this makes Verizon and Motorola the first to 5G in the world, there are still questions about what really means to us all, the people who use the first 5G phone on the first 5G network – available only in parts of two American cities.

We will provide live updates during our test, as we spend more time seeing exactly what the first 5G and 5G mobile networks can and cannot handle.

It took to get 5G service

] Verinson's activation of its 5G network is far from a broad launch. Officially, the network is only in Chicago, Illinois, and in Minneapolis, Wisconsin. While Chicago is a big city and Minneapolis is not small, the actual availability of 5G in each city is still limited.

For now, only a handful of Chicago departments are covered in the 5G network, and Verizon has not released any cover cards for customers to see. These are dense areas in Chicago, including the Magnificent Mile (especially the Verizon store), the Gold Coast, Old Town, River North and parts of the South Loop and West Loop. Milwaukee's 5G coverage areas are located in Downtown West, Downtown East, Elliot Park and the Mall of America's Verizon Store.

Apart from hands-on in the Magnificent Mile Verizon Store where the launch event took place, we knew we should experience 5G in the wild can take some work.

We needed both the Moto Z3, 5G Moto Mod, an unlimited data plan from Verizon, and we had to pay a special $ 10 5G service fee on top of the data plan to access the 5G network. Finally, the hardware costs us $ 749 in the store (without choosing a contract where there are some discounts), and the service will cost around $ 100 a month.

Without further ado, let's get to the business: is it really faster

5G vs 4G LTE Speed ​​

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

How does this speed exceed real performance?

All 1080p videos on YouTube started playing fast as we merged one by one. Scrubbing through each video's running time caused a short pause before playback resumes. But after transition to 4G, we didn't see much of a difference while doing the same.

Since most of us do not use our mobile network to run speed tests, we jumped right into the Play Store to download the powerful 1.81 GB PUBG Mobile game. On the 5G network, the download only took 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Repeat the download on the 4G network, the download took 6 minutes and 8 seconds.

So, while the 5G network is obviously the fastest of the two, it's not of a magnitude.

5G reliability

Perks of Chicago: public transport, sea access, 5G … image .twitter.com/Z7xMNHxgc3 April 3, 2019

During our first hands-on, We are serious about Verizon's 5G network reliability.

Take the Verizon Store where the event took place: it was barely larger than 30 feet above and 100 meters back, with a 5G knot at the front of the building. The front desk was spotty at the back and could even peter out near the front. We noticed the Moto Z3 switch from 5G to 4G LTE on several occasions as we moved around and had to keep checking that our speed tests were 5G all the way through.

While we are testing the 5G connection over the next week through the Chicago area, we will check if the Verizon millimeter wave technology is using its 5G network to penetrate into obstacles and walls. The lack of a defined 5G map is also a problem, as when we do not get 5G, we are asked to ask if it is because there is no signal in the area or if the phone just fails to pick it up. [19659004] We're going to continue testing the advent of 5G in Chicago this week, so stay up to date on how the service works for us and the top speeds we hit. When it works and where it works, it's probably faster than 4G LTE; The future of smartphones is here, but not everywhere.