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5G is likely to hit cheap prepaid phones in 2021.
Angela Lang / CNET
Next year, 5G won’t just be for expensive phones, thanks to a boost from companies that make chips for the devices.
MediaTek on Tuesday joined Qualcomm to introduce less expensive 5G processors for smartphones. The Taiwanese company’s Dimensity 700 will enable 5G phones that cost less than $ 250. And it will likely target a major market: prepaid smartphones in the United States, said Finbarr Moynihan, MediaTek’s general sales manager.
“Dimensity 700 is the device that will enable the mass market for 5G phones,” Moynihan said in an interview ahead of Tuesday’s news. He noted that the chip will be in prepaid phones in the United States and Europe next year and will hit Chinese phones this year.
Most of the people in the US have what are called postpaid cell phone plans. They sign contracts with companies like Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile and have a data allowance to use each month. When it comes to 5G, plans tend to offer unlimited data. But about 80 million people in the US, about a quarter of all phone users, access prepaid plans from providers like Republic Wireless and T-Mobile’s Metro. Customers prepay for a specified amount of data and can re-update it when it runs out. Because the plans tend to attract people with little or no credit, prepaid users tend to look for less expensive phones. So far, that hasn’t included 5G devices.
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The first smartphones to hit the market with 5G were pricey. They often commanded a steep premium over their 4G variants and also required premium service plans. But prices for 5G phones have been falling quickly over the past several months as the novel coronavirus hurts consumer spending and as wireless providers push people to 5G as fast as possible. Many handset makers have introduced mainstream devices alongside or shortly after pricier flagship models. New, premium models, like Samsung’s Galaxy S20 lineup, have seen steep discounts. And even Apple even kept the price of its iPhone 12 Pro lineup steady with last year’s phones, despite the fact the new models include 5G connectivity.
But 5G still hasn’t expanded to many devices that cost less than $500, at least not in the US. TCL’s $400 10 5G UW is the cheapest phone on Verizon’s network this year, but 2021 should see even less expensive smartphones. Ultimately, 5G is expected to be a game-changer, but for many consumers right now, it’s just an extra cost. The introduction of cheaper devices can help change that.
“Clearly this year 5G became kind of standard in flagship phones,” Moynihan said. But the Dimensity 700 “will start to close the gap between 4G wireless and 5G [handsets] entering the market “.
Bringing 5G to the mainstream
There are actually only four companies in the world that make 5G chips: Qualcomm, MediaTek, Samsung and Huawei. Samsung and Huawei largely only use their 5G chips in their own devices. Qualcomm has supplied 5G modems for the vast majority of high-end phones this year, including the new iPhones. MediaTek, for its part, has mainly supplied modems to Asian phone manufacturers. But he sees the switch to 5G as a way to enter the US phone market. In August, LG Velvet became the first smartphone to use MediaTek’s processor, the Dimensity 1000c, in the US.
In September, Qualcomm said that Bringing 5G to $ 125 Phones from Motorola, Oppo, and Xiaomi Next Year. The company, a leader in 5G processors, said super-fast connectivity will be in its next Snapdragon 4 series line.
MediaTek said Tuesday that its Dimensity 700 is based on 7-nanometer manufacturing technology, integrates two large Arm Cortex-A76 cores into its Oct-core CPU and operates at up to 2.2GHz. It takes advantage of the slower but more reliable form of 5G that is favored in China and by T-Mobile in the US The processor takes advantage of 5G carrier aggregation to enable faster speeds and also supports dual 5G simulations.
The Dimensity 700 comes with a battery-saving technology called MediaTek 5G UltraSave that intelligently manages a phone’s 5G connection to consume less power. Supports 90 Hz high definition displays; 48 megapixel or 64 megapixel main camera sensors with night shot and AI-enabled bokeh effect; and voice assistants from brands like Alibaba, Amazon, Baidu, Google, and Tencent.
The new Dimensity 700 follow MediaTek’s Dimensity 800 from earlier this year and his high-end Dimensity 1000 from a year ago. During its conference Tuesday, MediaTek also teased its next flagship phone chip. The company did not elaborate on the name, but said it will be based on a more advanced 6nm process technology (the most advanced chip size today is the 5nm used in Apple’s new A14 bionic processor).
MediaTek’s upcoming high-end processor will integrate Arm’s newest premium cores and be capable of speeds up to 3Ghz. It will appear on phones in the first half of 2021, starting in China, Moynihan said.
Phone-like computer
Along with the news of the phone chip, MediaTek on Tuesday introduced two new chips for Google Chromebooks. The MT8192 is based on 7nm technology and is aimed at conventional devices. The MT8195 is 6nm and will hit premium Chromebooks with sleek, lightweight designs and a long battery life.
Chromebooks powered by MT8192 will hit the market in Q2 2021, while premium Chromebooks using MT8195 will arrive later in the year or in 2022.
MediaTek’s Chromebook chips arrive as Apple prepares Tuesday to introduce Macs using its own Arm-based processor. They will also take on new Windows machines that have been designed to look more like mobile devices. Qualcomm has partnered with Microsoft and PC makers like Asus to create what it calls Always-On PCs, but the devices haven’t sold in large numbers. They may have great battery life and consistent connectivity, but they haven’t been able to match the performance of processors from Intel and AMD.
Still, laptops have sold well across the board as people look for devices to work and take classes from home. In the third quarter, global shipments of laptops and mobile workstations soared 28% from a year earlier, helping drive total PC shipments up 13% to 79.2 million units, according to Canalys. . Shipments reached levels not seen since 2011, the firm said.
“There is no secret with all homeschooling, Chromebooks have seen phenomenal growth this year,” Moynihan said. He added that Apple’s push to use its own Arm-based chips in its Macs will help the rest of the industry work on computers similar to phones.
Advances in Arm and manufacturers like TSCM “can really bring some power and performance advantages to Arm-based [chips]”Moynihan said.” We see a lot of growth and strength in the Chromebook category. “
