5G, 5G, 5G! Carriers and smartphone makers can’t stop talking about how fast the fifth-generation mobile network is. Is the much-hyped technology worth a device upgrade? 5G is fast—when you can find it—but as my week of battery tests show, it’s a power hog, and there are no killer apps requiring the high data speeds just yet.
Carriers over the past year are offering aggressive trade-in deals—as much as $1,000 off—to get people to upgrade to the latest 5G models, after spending billions of dollars setting up the new mobile network. It’s working: According to Counterpoint Research, global sales of 5G smartphones surpassed 4G handsets for the first time in January.
