In 2020, Qualcomm’s slower chips may be more important than its best ones
0Reported today on The Verge
For the full article visit: https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/5/20995816/qualcomm-5g-865-765-android-processor-megahertz-myth-2020
Reported today in The Verge.
In 2020, Qualcomm's slower chips may be more important than its best ones
Qualcomm's annual Hawaiian press event to announce its products for the coming year is happening. It's there in part because Qualcomm needs something equally convenient for Asian and American attendees and also because the company probably is still smarting from the reaction to its absolutely bonkers attempt to make CES its big annual keynote in 2013 (if you don't know what I am referring to, you absolutely should click).
As I briefly mentioned yesterday, the main thing that strikes me this year is how much more real it seems. Qualcomm is like Intel in one regard: it is several steps removed from being able to directly deliver consumer products, so it has to resort to big promises it can't actually directly make happen.
Last year's event was a perfect example: the 5G demos on site turned out to be a big dud, my colleague Sean Hollister reported. A year later and we have real 5G rollouts in the US and actual 5G phones for sale. I would have put even odds that neither would have happened. Much of it is still more hype than reality, but the reality is there. Verizon's coverage maps show that it exists on a few street corners in major cities. Which, technically, is real 5G if you can find it. Ahem.
T-Mobile really has rolled 5G out across much of the US with its more expansive spectrum, but there are precious few phones that support it - and we won't really know whether it's significantly different from LTE until more phones do.
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