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Initial Tests of the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G and 5G Networks in US Cities Find The Phone Often Overheats and Switches To 4G (wsj.com) 71

Posted by msmash from the literally-hot dept.
Joanna Stern, reporting for the Wall Street Journal: One of the biggest findings of my multi-city 5G review tour: The Samsung Galaxy S10 5G isn't reliable in the summer -- unless, well, you summer in Iceland. When I ran tests, the phone's 5G often switched off due to overheating, leaving me with a 4G connection. Cellular carriers demo-ing or testing the phone have taken to cooling the devices with ice packs and air conditioners. The phone does this when the temperature reaches a certain threshold to minimize energy use and optimize battery, a Samsung spokeswoman said. "As 5G technology and the ecosystem evolve, it's only going to get better," she added. But there is good part, too. The report adds: After nearly 120 tests, more than 12 city miles walked and a couple of big blisters, I can report that 5G is fasten-your-seat-belt fast...when you can find it. And you're standing outdoors. And the temperature is just right. As my findings show, 5G is absolutely not ready for you. But like any brand new network technology, it provides a glimpse of the future. "Holy spit!" I said the first time I saw a speed test hit 1,800 megabits per second on Verizon's network in downtown Denver. [...] Don't speak megabits? I downloaded the whole new season of "Stranger Things" from Netflix -- 2.1 gigabytes of video -- in 34 seconds. The same averaged more than an hour on my 4G connections. And I downloaded a huge, 10GB file full of video and images from Google Drive in 2.5 minutes.
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Initial Tests of the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G and 5G Networks in US Cities Find The Phone Often Overheats and Switches To 4G More

Initial Tests of the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G and 5G Networks in US Cities Find The Phone Often Overheats and Switches To 4G

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  • p'shaw (Score:2, Funny)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 )
    As a certified tech, I overclock my phones all the time anyway and use a liquid cooling case to keep the CPU temps reasonable! It's no bigger than parents' original cellphone and it's still portable... mostly...

  • and 20G you get speed capped any ways so it may no (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @02:26PM (#58947234)

    and 20G you get speed capped any ways so it may not that big of an deal at all.

    • I'm wondering what the wide appeal of 5G will be?

      Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, the 5G wavelength does NOT work and play well with walls, and would therefore mostly only be useful when outside, is this correct?

      If so, since most of us tend to be sedentary and indoors in the AC (at least in the US and more and more with any western nation)...what use is the speed of 5G to us, if it can't make it to where we'd be sitting using the signal most often?

      Also, it seems they are still sayi

      • 5G is useful in wide open areas with a lot of users. Think mainstreet, ballparks and train-stations

        • 5G is useful in wide open areas with a lot of users. Think mainstreet, ballparks and train-stations

          But, how many people are going to be USING this 5G in those locations??

          I mean, at a ballpark, you're watching the game.

          Whose going to be standing outside on mainstream in 100F or 20F weather watching a video on their tiny phone screens? Likely they are working or running errands when out, not watching content or paying games....

          Train stations? Ok, maybe special case, but hardly any cities around the US eve

          • They aren't thinking video-streaming, a few hounded people sharing their selfies is more than enough to overwhelm 4G bandwidth, a few thousand can even saturate it by simply texting

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
              Well if texing =sms no they can’t sms is a service the 2g network ( using space left over in the signaling channel iirc) so even if the usage overloads thevavalable capacity in a cell and people have to wait to seb/ recieve data (other than possebly edge is not afected

      • I'm wondering what the wide appeal of 5G will be?

        5G is useful for marketing. It plays well to people who like to say "my number is bigger than yours" for any technical thing that has a number in it.

      • I'm wondering what the wide appeal of 5G will be?

        Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, the 5G wavelength does NOT work and play well with walls, and would therefore mostly only be useful when outside, is this correct?

        If so, since most of us tend to be sedentary and indoors in the AC (at least in the US and more and more with any western nation)...what use is the speed of 5G to us, if it can't make it to where we'd be sitting using the signal most often?

        Most homes, and a lot of workplaces and stores have Wi-fi. So for a lot of the sedentary customers they don't even need data, and their phones can fall back on 4G for voice and text. Even if they do need data, if frees up congestion on the 5G spectrum for areas that the 5G will shine.

        Myself I've hardly "needed" speeds faster than 3G. For 5G the benefit would be that more customers can be serviced in dense outdoor areas moreso than the speed. I've been to a couple outdoor festivals / concerts and the cell se

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Algan ( 20532 )

        5G makes better use of existing spectrum, has lower latency and supports more devices than 4G. It can run on the existing 4G bands, including 600-700Mhz, and there you would get the same coverage and penetration you get now with 4G. However, you can also run it on higher frequency bands, up to 30Ghz or so. Higher the band, higher the bandwidth, but crappier penetration. Speeds tests that report blistering speeds of more than 1gbps are usually done on high frequency bands, but you would have to be outside an

      • 5G isn't just for phones.

        Cars, steaming analytics to the cloud while the occupantss all watch videos.

        And people in all the buildings will have 5G antennas on the roof serving everyone inside.

        Rural broadband.

        • Cars, steaming analytics to the cloud while the occupantss all watch videos.

          Err...why would I want my car to do that?

          And sure, maybe passengers might watch some video, but I'll be busy driving....

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        The telcos can allso run 5G on the frequencies 3G used to be on (at least here in Norway where the shut down 3G to free up tf for 5G ) so at least some 5g will have the same propagation/penitration as 3G had. I’m not a radio engineer so if I have this all wrong I would appreciate corrections have a nice dat

  • Be accurate! The defect is [only] in the US. (Score:3)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @02:38PM (#58947296)

    ... As my findings show, 5G is absolutely not ready for you...

    Should be edited to say: -

      As my findings show, 5G is absolutely not ready for you in the US cities I tested.

    (bold mine)

    5G is already doing well [youtube.com] in some cities already.

    • That defect is in a Samsung device overheating... The cell towers didn't explode.

      Oh boy, an automated bus passed a closed and completely controlled driving test.
      #5GPOWERED
      Note the disclaimer: 'CGTN is funded in whole or in part by the Chinese Gov't.' I doubt the failed tests were ever aired, if so they would probably lose Social Credits.

    • Maybe I missed something, but your post seems to be completely non sequitur. I didn't want to sign into the site, so didn't read the article to the end, but TFA seems to be very specific to one cell phone model overheating in the summer (in some cities):

      "One of the biggest findings of my multi-city 5G review tour: The Samsung Galaxy S10 5G isn’t reliable in the summer—unless, well, you summer in Iceland"

      So...

      1) TFA doesn't claim that the problem is global. TFA even points out that it may work pe

    • Actually, they should sell these phones in Canada. They may overheat in the US in the summer but in Canada, in the winter they may just produce enough heat to prevent your fingers getting frostbite when you use them.

  • LOL (Score:1)

    by nwaack ( 3482871 )
    And yet another reason why 5G is obscenely stupid...not that we needed another reason to be convinced of this.

    • We need plenty of reasons since we've not yet found any (and this isn't an indication of one either). You're the one who seems to be unable to use your brain so "reasons" and "logic" probably have no effect on you.

  • Given that there are presumably few (if any) other 5G phones in the cities it was tested in - the data rates are probably a hell of a lot faster right now than they would be with a hundred people sharing a cell.

    So all bets are off for now.

    • I think the 5G cells are supposed to be a lot smaller in foot print than the older tech cells, so there's some argument they may be able to deliver on speed even after a wider adoption.

      I'm just curious how this will affect cellular data caps/allowances. I'm sort of convinced that cellular monthly data caps will have to go up, just because it will be absurd to be able to blast through a whole month's data in minutes (or at least in less than an hour). And if it does use smaller cell footprints, some of the

      • The idea is that since connections close so much more quickly you can service a lot more users with the same amount of bandwidth. Your primary benefit in having faster-data is longer battery life as the faster the connection closes the quicker the radio can go back to low-powered standby mode
  • Not to worry, apparently you will your data cap before your phone overheats.

  • Right..... (Score:3)

    by Zorro ( 15797 ) on Thursday July 18, 2019 @03:05PM (#58947392)

    I need to download 2 GB files to a phone exactly ZERO times a year.

    • I need to download 2 GB files to a phone exactly ZERO times a year.

      OS updates are pushing that already. For some Android vendors with bloatware baked in, it may already be past 2GB.

      I hope you update your phone's OS more than once a year.

      • When I have to download updates I wait until I get home then I do that through Wifi.
        I mean, 5G is an advancement, sure. But You might not benefit from it everyday depending on your usage patterns/data plan limits

  • The reason for the overheating isn't what you think. It overheats because the phone is becoming increasingly nervous that you're going to spike it on the ground and shatter it into a million pieces when you get your phone bill for $20K that month. ;)

  • So they'll have to make the camera waterproof so you can submerge the thing in cooling fluid to use 5g?

  • I thought 5G used less power, so shouldn't the chips run cooler?

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