Weekly poll results: 5G unlikely to explode this year, as network coverage remains limited

When we asked you last week if you’re considering a 5G phone purchase, we had a solid ground to step on - manufacturers are outing phones in Europe, carriers are turning on their 5G antennas and there are 5G modems in the pipeline as well.

Turns out this is neat in theory, but in practice many of you won’t get to experience 5G in full anytime soon, so they'd be perfectly okay with a 4G smartphone.

A lot of people were wondering what do you even do with 5G connectivity that you can’t do with 4G? Well, aside from the bandwidth increase from 100 Mbps to 1Gbps, you get less lag, which enables smooth gaming and more fluid conference calls. Hardly game-changers in the big picture, but may be big deal to some.

Oppo Reno 5G • Samsung Galaxy S10 5G • Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 5G • Huawei Mate 20 X

But all this would be amazing if carriers up their game a little bit. Right now, we have a handful of telecoms that are working on 5G standards and they are mostly in the US, Western Europe, Australia and South Korea. Regions like Asia-Pacific, Latin America and EMEA are still developing their 4G network, so 5G is currently in the wishlist, instead of the roadmap.