You'd never know by looking at the brick-like phone that it's one of the fastest devices on the planet. The generic-looking handset is a prototype design that Qualcomm made to showcase 5G, but it -- and another prototype made by Samsung -- prove that the age of 5G phones and networks is coming fast.
Qualcomm, alongside partners Samsung, Verizon and AT&T, came to the Snapdragon Technology Summit this week in Maui, Hawaii, where they all talked up their plans for 5G in 2019.
But Samsung and the networks did more than just talk. Verizon and AT&T set up mini 5G networks to power some demos, and Samsung showed off an early, but working, prototype of a 5G phone in a dock to run a demo at its own booth.
The 350 journalists in attendance weren't given an opportunity to try out the devices, but we did get a chance to see them.
5G "will lay the foundation for smartphones, later cars and virtually every electronic device that will be connected," Qualcomm president Cristiano Amon said during a keynote.
"That first step [smartphones] is getting to us in the first half of 2019."
