5G mobile phones are selling like hot cakes! Netizens: It’s useless if the signal and package can’t keep up

During this year's Double 11, mobile phones were one of the most popular product categories sold on various e-commerce platforms, with 5G phones being the mainstream. Have you used a 5G phone? How far have you progressed in 5G adoption?

At the 2020 Ziguang ZTE Market Summit held in Shanghai recently, Chen Fengwei, deputy general manager of China Unicom's Terminal and Channel Support Center, introduced that the current 5G mobile phone penetration rate has exceeded 62%, which means that 62 out of every 100 mobile phones sold are 5G.

However, due to the shortage of chips and components, the large-scale launch of 5G mobile phones priced at 1,000 yuan originally scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year did not occur. It will probably be delayed by one quarter.

5G signal is full but the speed is comparable to 4G

It was found through social platforms that it is not uncommon for netizens to switch to 5G mobile phones, but the experience has mixed reviews.

Some netizens said that 5G phones are good, but the Internet speed is not much faster. Using a 5G phone and subscribing to a 5G package, the 5G logo is also seen on the phone's signal display, but the specific experience sometimes feels not much different from 4G. Some people even said that no matter how high the penetration rate of 5G phones is, if the package and signal cannot keep up, isn't it all nonsense?

Some netizens also said that the Internet speed is very fast in places with good 5G signals.

In fact, for the first case, industry insiders pointed out that this is related to the layout of the network:

• The first is the 5G anchor point. Although the phone displays the 5G logo, it actually uses the 4G channel, so the experience is basically the same as 4G.
• Second, in NSA networking, the core network uses 4G, and the mobile phone can indeed detect the signal of the 5G base station. In theory, there will be a significant improvement in speed, and it will not be a problem to reach the nominal speed of the operator.
• The third is SA networking, a completely independent new 5G network. Obviously, SA can better play the network characteristics of 5G with large bandwidth, low latency and large connections. However, because the SA standard was finalized later, in the early stage of 5G construction, almost all global operators, including Chinese operators, adopted the NSA method.

However, just last weekend, China Telecom announced that SA was the first in the world to be put into large-scale commercial use, and has been implemented in more than 300 cities across the country.

So how do we detect which of the above situations the 5G we are connected to is?

The operation is very simple. Find [About Phone] in the [Settings] interface of the phone. After entering, click on the status of your 5G mobile phone SIM card in [Status Information], and you can see an item called [Mobile Data Network Type].

If LTE is displayed, it is a 5G anchor point and all 4G channels are used; if it is LTE&NR, it is an NSA networking situation, which is the current mainstream 5G network; if it is NR, then congratulations, your operator has opened SA networking.

There are slight differences in the viewing methods for different mobile phone brands:

• Huawei mobile phone: Settings-About phone-Status message-Network-Mobile network type;
• Xiaomi mobile phone: Settings-My device-All parameters-Status information-SIM card status-Mobile data network type;
• Vivo mobile phone: Settings-System-About phone-SIM card status-SIM card 1/2-Mobile data/voice network type".

If you find after the test that the 5G mobile phone in your hand cannot use the real 5G network, don't worry. I believe that with China Telecom taking the lead in pressing the SA commercial button, the SA commercial use of China Mobile and China Unicom will also be coming soon.

A rational view of 5G cloud phones

This year's 5G mobile phones can be said to be in a blowout trend. In the current mobile phone market, Apple, Huawei, Samsung, vivo, OPPO, OnePlus, Xiaomi and other brands have launched 5G mobile phones. After most mobile phone manufacturers launched hundreds of 5G mobile phones, Apple's 5G mobile phone iPhone12 series has recently been late. The competition for 5G mobile phones is becoming more and more fierce.

In addition to the poor Internet speed experience reflected by netizens in the previous article, the relatively high price of mobile phones is also a reason why many people have not yet replaced their 5G mobile phones. Although some manufacturers have launched 5G mobile phones under 1,000 yuan, the price of 5G flagships has remained high.

It is worth noting that among the many newly released 5G mobile phones, China Telecom operators launched their first 999 yuan cloud phone. Such an affordable price has indeed lowered the threshold for users to use 5G, and the "5G, yuan" blessing makes this phone high-end.

However, some people have questioned this 5G cloud phone, believing that it is actually a hype concept based on false demand.

On the one hand, the official introduction that "the 5G cloud phone does not occupy local storage space and does not rely on local phone performance" shows that this phone only plays an output and interactive role through the 5G network, and the performance-demanding calculations and rendering are handed over to the cloud to complete. In short, the 5G cloud phone is actually a "5G player". In addition, the official propaganda says that you can use the cloud phone to play cloud games and watch cloud videos, but simple games do not need it, and high-end competitive games cannot be played. The actual delay of 5G may not meet the demand for extremely fast response.

On the other hand, although it is not ruled out that the development and large-scale use of "hardware + cloud services" will become the mainstream in the future, the 5G network is still not mature and stable enough, which will become the biggest problem affecting the use and experience of cloud phones. At present, limited by network signal problems, cloud phones cannot really move without obstacles. Sun Yanbiao, director of the First Mobile World Research Institute, pointed out that it will take at least 4 years for cloud phones to achieve a smooth experience.

Of course, we cannot completely deny 5G cloud phones.

Recently, Baidu officially released the "Baidu Cloud Phone Flagship Edition". In March this year, Huawei also launched the Huawei Cloud Kunpeng Cloud Phone for the first time. However, it is not a simple hardware product, but a non-physical mobile phone running in the cloud. It provides services in the form of leasing. The entrance can be an APP or a cloud platform.

So what are the differences between cloud devices and traditional hardware devices? Take Huawei Cloud Kunpeng Cloud Phone as an example. Taking application hosting in the Internet industry as an example, the differences between using traditional phones and cloud phones are as follows:

From the above screenshots, the emergence of cloud phones can be said to be a major subversion of traditional mobile phone hardware, but this does not mean that cloud phones can replace traditional phones. It can be regarded as a major trend in the future. Now, the time is not yet ripe in terms of network connection and cost. As mentioned above, the best promotion point for cloud phones should be to achieve full coverage of China's 5G network. Before the cost is reduced, this product is more suitable for enterprises rather than ordinary consumers.

Compared with cloud phones that are far into the future, the general public is more looking forward to solving practical problems right in front of them, such as early and comprehensive coverage of 5G signals, lower data package fees from operators, and more affordable 5G phones, so that 5G can be more popular in the market and benefit the general public.