My First 5G Phone Arrived Yesterday

sms

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Feb 1, 2022, 3:37:45 PM2/1/22

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My first 5G phone, a Motorola One 5G Ace arrived yesterday.

I had no interest in getting this phone, or service on Xfinity Mobile
(Verizon MVNO), but I had to sign up for Xfinity Mobile to get 600 Mb/s
broadband for $55 off (net $35 per month). Their pricing model is
strange. I guess they hope to get whole families to move to Xfinity
Mobile. The pricing isn’t terrible, $30 per month per line for four
lines, but it’s about 20% more than I’m currently paying on another
Verizon MVNO, and they can (or will) throttle after 20GB per line of LTE
or low-band 5G data (oddly, they explicitly state that C-Band and mmWave
data don’t count toward the 20GB).

Since it’s on Verizon, the LTE speeds are fast, close to 200Mb/s, and
the 5G speeds are about 300 Mb/s. This is very different than on a
carrier like T-Mobile that has slow LTE but has low-band 5G that is
about the same speed as Verizon LTE.

This phone was “free” (actually they paid me $50 to take it by porting
in a number) so I can’t really complain, but there are some annoying things:

1. Xfinity doesn’t allow 5G to be turned off on this phone. On iPhones,
Verizon suggests turning off 5G to reduce battery drain, but on this
phone I had to install an app "Force LTE Only (4G/5G)"
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xsquarestudio.forcelte>
to do this. I don’t know if it would really make any difference, but
Verizon seems to think so (at least for the iPhone).

2. No wireless charging. I knew this when I bought it, since mid-range
phones often lack this feature. While it’s possible to add a USB-C to
wireless receiver, this makes it a hassle when you do want to use a cable.

3. LCD, not OLED screen, and only 60Hz refresh rate. If I had to pay
MSRP for this phone, of around $399 for the 128GB/6GB version, I
wouldn’t. For a little more money I’d get the Samsung A52 5G which is
more fully featured. Still this phone is a lot better than the Samsung
A32 5G.

4. The phone ships as carrier-locked but unlocking cost only US$2.34 and
took only about fifteen minutes from ordering the unlock code to
receiving it < https://www.ebay.com/itm/313650792593>. I don’t plan on
using it on another carrier in the U.S., but if I travel, when the
pandemic is over, I might want to use it with a foreign prepaid SIM
before the two years are up (I had to go on a 23 month payment plan of
12¢/month). Note that many phone brands, and especially iPhones and
Samsung phones, are now very difficult or impossible to fully unlock
through a third party, but Lenovo doesn't do this on their Motorola phones.

5. Only 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM. This phone appears to be
stripped down model specifically for Xfinity since other versions have
128GB and 6GB or RAM. But since there’s a MicroSD card slot 64GB is
sufficient.

The good stuff:

1. Large, high-resolution, screen

2. Headphone jack

3. MicroSD card slot

4. Sufficiently fast with a Qualcomm Snapdragon™ 750G 5G processor

5. IP67

Andy Burnelli

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Feb 1, 2022, 5:23:10 PM2/1/22

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On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 12:37:43 -0800, sms wrote:

> Since it's on Verizon, the LTE speeds are fast, close to 200Mb/s, and
> the 5G speeds are about 300 Mb/s. This is very different than on a
> carrier like T-Mobile that has slow LTE but has low-band 5G that is
> about the same speed as Verizon LTE.

Andy Burnelli

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Feb 1, 2022, 5:26:57 PM2/1/22

to

On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 12:37:43 -0800, sms wrote:

> Verizon suggests turning off 5G to reduce battery drain, but on this
> phone I had to install an app "Force LTE Only (4G/5G)"
> <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xsquarestudio.forcelte>
> to do this. I don't know if it would really make any difference, but
> Verizon seems to think so (at least for the iPhone).

For others who have heard this "battery drain" complaint, I have a free
Samsung Galaxy A32-5G whose battery lasts for days on end with 5G on.

Since the carrier gave essentially everyone free unlimited data (including
5G), I've been leaving 5G on all the time, and the battery lasts forever.

Likewise with the GPS radio once I found out about GPS spoofing apps.

Yet I know that these things "could" be a huge drain on the battery.

My assessment is that the battery problem is perhaps likely to be far more
dependent on the _size_ of the battery than on anything else overall.

Andy Burnelli

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Feb 1, 2022, 5:28:32 PM2/1/22

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On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 12:37:43 -0800, sms wrote:

> But since there's a MicroSD card slot 64GB is sufficient.

The microsd slot does _more_ than just augment primary storage.

It gives you the _choice_ of portable private storage, which is different.