4G or 5G?

[Sir Topham Hatt]

Not really sure of what to do as I don't know whether the benefits outweigh the...  not-benefits.

 

Here's my thoughts:

 

I work in a city that has 5G.

My home area doesn't have 5G.

I prefer quality of connection over speed.  4G is quick enough for me.

A high priority is battery life.  I have heard changing radios when going in and out of 5G areas can use a lot of battery, especially in a 4G area when it's searching for 5G.

Not particularly worried about mind control through 5G.  I'm vaccinated anyway so they'll just use that  *jokes*

I don't play online games through my phone.  Mainly browse internet, watch YouTube and listen to downloaded podcasts (so the latter won't be affected anyway).

 

Would 5G provide better quality signal or is it purely speed?

I current have limited my Samsung S21+ or whatever it's called to 4G only, although used 5G for a while.

 

Cheerio.

[SnoopZ]

Here's my thoughts, I have 5g at work but only 4g at home, but who would use that when they can use wi-fi for everything including calls at home?

 

Based on my browsing experience and the fact my S20FE is 5g I would always use 5g if it was available, battery life is a none issue with my phone, but then I don't browse 24/7 on it and using quick charge at home makes it a none issue.

 

 

 

[cork1958]

Personally, I haven't really seen any benefit to 5g over 4g unless you're really close to a tower and that only helps speed, IMO.

 

I have 5g pretty much where ever I go around here, but it's not a super strong signal in most areas. Don't notice any difference in any call quality or anything. I simply never mess with it as it works either way.

[shockz]

I am call this a soft launch of 5G for US carriers, their standard 5G offerings are barely any faster than LTE/4G.

 

Their "true" 5G (i.e Ultra Wide, Ultra Clear, 5G+) are usually completely saturated and slower than "traditional" 5G and sometimes LTE. On verizon in particular, whenever i end up on Ultrawide my pings go to 1000s of ms and bandwidth is unusable.

 

You're not missing much yet with 5G. When carriers actually get a consistent, broad deployment pushed, you'll notice better pings, and real bandwidth differences. When I'm not on saturated 5G+/UltraWide, I'm getting 1200 mbit down. Heavy media sites are instant. No delay. Ready to go as soon as I press a link.

[Steven P. Administrators]

I didn't switch to 4G until my telephone provider offered it without extra cost. If you don't "need it" don't do it.

[SnoopZ]

You mean 5G? I didn't realise people paid extra for that I guess it was years ago.

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 12/09/2022 at 18:20, SnoopZ said:

You mean 5G? I didn't realise people paid extra for that I guess it was years ago.

No mate. In 2013 the basic business SIM with 4G was €50. I was on a 3G plan with a HTC 8X at just over half that cost, I think it was something like €27.50 (ex Tax).

[Sir Topham Hatt]

As an update:

 

I don't pay extra for 5G - it's free.
Sometimes in the UK, they will charge but now it's been around for a while, it's free on most contracts.

My current contract is 50Gb for £10 a month, so not worried about burning through data - I barely use 5Gb as Wi-Fi at home (which is only 30Mb as I'm president of the El Cheapo Confederation!)

 

Just done a quick speed test:
4G - Ping: 40ms - 57.11Mb download
5G - Ping: 32ms - 349Mb download

 

I am currently in a fairly fortified building (in the UK) so it may be higher outside.

[SnoopZ]

On 12/09/2022 at 17:27, Sir Topham Hatt said:

As an update:

 

I don't pay extra - it's free for me.

 

Just done a quick speed test:
4G - Ping: 40ms - 57.11Mb download
5G - Ping: 32ms - 349Mb download

 

I am currently in a fairly fortified building (in the UK) so it may be higher outside.

Just stick to 5G if it's available.

[Steven P. Administrators]

Get 5G then me old mucker  

[+mram Subscriber²]

The 4G or 5G choice comes down to a decision point on bandwidth and battery consumption.

 

Generally speaking I have chargers wherever I am at a desk (it's usually a stand/cradle for my phone that keeps it qi charged) so I only worry about battery consumption really when I'm traveling or just "out" which is never really an excessive amount of time.  For you that may be different but just putting this into perspective.

 

Whenever your phone is struggling to get a signal, you're eating more battery.  The stronger the signal is, the less battery consumption.    This isn't a massive curve, but an obvious one.  And when I say "struggle" I mean like not really holding a connection.

 

5G is better than 4G bandwidth wise even without the mmwave bonuses.  5G and 4G use lower frequencies which do travel long distances - not sure about UK vs US but the range and signal should be on-par with 4G, with a moderate speed boost.  So if you have it available or imminent, I'd opt for it.  It's not like your home environment won't eventually have 5G.

 

I switched carriers in the US and noticed a signal change, but that's mostly based on cell towers in my area, and that will change yearly for the most part.  It's hard to know for sure - this is the kind of commodity where it's not expected to really ever get worse over time.

 

So after that brain dump I'd say this:  No explicit disadvantage to 5G; you should be able to force 4G/LTE if you want to avoid your phone struggling for optimal connections and conserve battery, otherwise take what you can get.  Signal strengths are equitable.  5G mmwave speeds are rare, but awesome where you can get them, it'll only improve.

[GeneHernandez]

I still use 3G hahah

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 22/09/2022 at 11:24, GeneHernandez said:

I still use 3G hahah

A friend of mine had a dumbphone that only supported 3G. In The Netherlands Vodafone and KPN phased out 3G from February and March this year respectively, so she had to find a 4G dumbphone that has a long standby, she ended up with a flip phone that wouldn't look out of place 20 years ago (but it is new) but I can't remember the make, it's probably a Nokia. All she does is call and text with it 😛 

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

I think 5g is only really a benefit if you live in a city where the mobile networks are so congested mobile data is almost unusable on 4g, that's where I perceive the advantage will be.

 

Personally I find 4g to be perfectly fine not living in a major city, I could use up my 12gb of data in no time if I really wanted to:

 

[spaceelf]

In my area 5g seems to help with some notable dead zones.

 

If you don't have any problems with your service, keeping it off is fine.  There's no hard rule to it.

[jnelsoninjax]

I have a 5G phone and 5G is in the city, however I have only ever got 5G in a very few areas, in fact 99% of the I only get LTE speed, IDK why that is, but for some reason my phone refuses to use the 4G even if it's there