So I’m about 6 months from upgrade time on my phone and the battery on my iPhone 7 is less than stellar.

I saw the new iPhone SE come out and thought that would be my next phone and tempted to get it a bit early – plus 3 have annoyed me so I think I’m going to switch to Vodaphone.

Then I read none of the new iPhone’s are 5g ready – and I don’t wish to have the even bigger iPhone 12 when it comes out – nor do I want to pay the Apple tax on it.

So is a 5g phone really necessary or is it not going to be a huge game changer vs 4g? Generally I keep phones 2 years then sell them on which can cover the cost of an early upgrade.

Before switching to iPhone I had a Samsung Galaxy S2 which I liked, then a Galaxy A3 which was a bit slow / pap.

iPhone does integrate well with everything / has all my passwords saved / has all my photos and videos backed up to the Cloud – so would it be a pain to switch to Samsung / Google Drive for cloud storage etc?

so I think I’m going to switch to Vodaphone.

Don’t do it. Buy whatever phone you want, but don’t do that.

Deffo not VodaBONE!

You’ll be wanting a Huawei Covid-19 handset 🤪

Some sort of burner phone perhaps?

You’ll have probably upgraded your phone another couple of times before there’s enough 5G coverage to make it worth while. What you may not realise is that there are two versions of 5G, the fastest also has the shortest range, is pretty much line of sight, won’t pass through buildings worth a damn, and will require a huge infrastructure rollout, the other version will have better range, but will be only marginally better than 4G at its best.
Once you’re outside of any major conurbation, you’re going to struggle to find any 5G at all, around where I live in Wiltshire it’s easy to find many places without even 3G coverage!
The only reason to upgrade is to take advantage of more storage, faster processing and better cameras, buying for 5G is a waste of your money for the foreseeable future.

What’s wrong with Vodaphone – my work phone is on there and it seems to get better coverage than me3 personal phone. Work phone is the old SE which is annoyingly small.

EE is the other major option and their voicemail doesn’t always seem to tell you when you have a message. Used to be the case on orange and my wife’s work phone on EE doesn’t bother to tell you still either.

I was reading the iPhone 12 basic version wouldn’t have the fastest 5g option anyway – you’d need the fancy expensive one. Maybe the new SE is worth it then.

I’ve just bought an s20 plus on voda aus. 5g is slow to roll out here but the proposal and plans for a 5g mast about 800m from my home are in the public domain. Was able to blag 100gb data as there’s no 5g now but its coming soon. Girl in the shop cleared it and the manager ok’d. 4gbim getting around 160 download. Playing with the cameras. Fun!

Do you really need 5G? Personally all the places I use high bandwidths on my phone are places where I’m on Wifi. The mobile networks only get used for relatively low bandwidth stuff on the move eg maps, FB, strava etc. Unless you’re consistently streaming HD Video on trains (with no wifi) I don’t really get the need for 5G on a phone.

What would being an early adopter of 5g gain you, aside from larger bills (a presumption, but it is Vodafone), and occasionally a download speed faster than most home broadband- ie is your current download speed really a bottleneck to your productivity/pleasure?

Personally, I’m unconvinced about the need in the near future unless it’s as a home broadband replacement.

5g phone?
One with a virus scanner I guess
😉

If you are a serial upgrader, I wouldn’t worry. If you tend to try and keep your phone’s for 2-3 years (SIM only plans) it might be worth going for 5g ready.

I only say that because I’m convinced 3g has either been throttled, deliberately allowed to reach capacity, or gives way to 4g traffic, and the same may happen for 4g.

I can be browsing comfortably using 4g yet my wife’s phone often slows to a crawl despite having a full 3g signal from the same mast and operator.

As been said, 5G won’t be ready for years yet, it’s largely a marketing exercise at the moment. To need 5G on a handset is a weird use case to actually benefit from the additional bandwidth over 4G, or even 3G. You could argue that just general browsing might be a bit better, although that is likely to be a factor of the better handset hardware rather than an advantage of 5G.

I have my iPhone 7 set to 3G to preserve battery life over internet speeds. This is probably likely for a number of people and could also be a factor in 3&4G comparison from the same location as described above. I.e. that’s are loads of 3G handsets. The local cells, can only support a fixed number of handsets at a time, if that limit is exceeded it then has a go slow. So the cell tower might have loads of spare capacity but because of the handset congestion it can’t make use of it.

I’d go for an SE.

I see 5G as something to modernise the reliance on old phone network, telegraph poles etc,. along with IOT, driverless cars and the like.
Not sure what anyone is doing on their phone that means 4g is not fast enough?

I only say that because I’m convinced 3g has either been throttled, deliberately allowed to reach capacity, or gives way to 4g traffic, and the same may happen for 4g.

I can be browsing comfortably using 4g yet my wife’s phone often slows to a crawl despite having a full 3g signal from the same mast and operator.

Well, 3G, by its very nature, is going to be slow by comparison to 4G, that’s why 4G was developed! It’s been around in Europe since 2009, but still isn’t widespread, especially in rural areas, or at least doesn’t seem to be – it’d be interesting to know just how many people still use 3G-only phones, I wouldn’t have thought it was that many now.

Not sure what anyone is doing on their phone that means 4g is not fast enough?

It’s all those people streaming endless Netflix, Spotify and other consumer video streams, taking advantage of £20/100Gb monthly packages from O2 and the like.

It’s not so much as 3g only phone, it’s a 3g contract that prevents most people getting 4g I’d have thought.

Perhaps 5G is taking off here a little faster than it is in the UK? We’re hoping that 5G will put a kick up the ar5e of the National Broadband Network which is, to be frank, crap unless you’re lucky enough to have FttP.

It’s not so much as 3g only phone, it’s a 3g contract that prevents most people getting 4g I’d have thought.

Is any network only offering 3G contracts nowadays though? My phone does show 3G networks out of urban areas, and I guess there are still plenty of legacy 3G-only phones around, though.