Apple’s new iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max are worthy upgrades – even without 5G

iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max come in midnight green, space gray, silver and gold finishes.
iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max come in midnight green, space gray, silver and gold finishes.

Daniel Howley for Yahoo Finance:

Apple launched its iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max on Tuesday. The smartphones feature a variety of improvements, including three all-new cameras on the 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max. But one element missing from the announcement was something carriers and governments around the world have been talking about for years: 5G.

Even if you currently have a 5G smartphone, the major U.S. carriers still don’t have their 5G networks built out. So you won’t be able to take advantage of those super-fast speeds. Instead you’ll likely end up using current 4G LTE networks. And it’s still unclear when 5G connections will be as ubiquitous as 4G LTE. Which means even without the high-speed connectivity of 5G, Apple’s iPhone 11 line might still be worth the upgrade for many users.

As of now, 5G is only available in an incredibly small number of cities across the U.S. And even in those cities, depending on the carrier you use, you may only be able to access a 5G connection in a very specific spot. Walk a block from a 5G node, and you’ll fall right back down to 4G LTE. Don’t forget, it took years to reach the level of 4G LTE saturation we have today, which means we’re still a long way off from 5G being as ubiquitous as 4G LTE currently is.

MacDailyNews Take: Exactly.

We’ll hear a lot of noise from the very vocal super-minority about how “Apple’s fallen behind” by not offering a radio that can communicate with a network that isn’t available to pretty much everyone yet, but that’s all it’ll be: meaningless noise that won’t affect regular people’s iPhone purchases. Late 2020 is the beginning of the 5G revolution, not 2019. — MacDailyNews, August 22, 2019

9 Comments

  1. Exactly……5g right now is a battery hog, poor range, poor penetration, not enough cell sites, and some radiation issues, and on and on it goes. 4gLTE is plenty fast for most people…

    ONE THING— Not mentioned at the reveal– iPhone 11 is using wifi-6 (ax) when available. Many folks do wifi calling and streaming to save data. A big upgrade will be happening in the wireless router world of many homes, businesses, and entertainment sites.

    Apple will knock it out of the park again with the “analysts” being left with the proverbial empty bag of dooooooom and gloooooom….!

  2. My concern is the health side of 5G. Read a few stories of being close to a tower affects health. Keep in mind, that the rollout of 2G, 3G and 4G/LTE had zero pushback on health issues so this is something that needs to be really looked at.

  3. Battery life is more important than 5G imho. An additional 4h can be very useful especially when traveling.
    The camera upgrade is very interesting. I doubt though if it will help with my photo skills. Still tend to pint and shoot.
    As I’m part of the Apple upgrade program I will be getting a new phone in a month. Why wait for another year just to be able to resell the old phone. I have plenty of the earlier generations in my drawer.
    Hate to say it but the most compelling “innovation” is the new green color. It is for me the best reason to upgrade. 😝

    1. 5G is just a scam in its early incarnations, so Scamsung has something to sell.

      5G means a bigger battery that is used faster, more heat and a higher price.

      5G will be hugely important in the future, but for now it is just a 5cam!

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