Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPhone 12 Thinking of holding off upgrading till 5G arrives

M

MrMiyagi1

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 22, 2019
203
76
Hey all,

Anyone else thinking of just holding off now from upgrading to a new iPhone until 5G fully arrives in your area.

Right now I can upgrade for free in December. Yes I am really tempted to get a new iPhone 12 mini when it’s released. Then I am thinking I will be paying extra to upgrade early and then also thinking that 5G isn’t in my area so why upgrade yet.

Yes I do want a shiny new iPhone. However my XR is holding out fine. The way I see it is that right now my home broadband I get maximum speeds of up to 50mb downloads. When 5G does arrive in my home town it would be a lot more faster than what I get at home. Yes the city near my home has got 5G. However due to working from home. It’s not as if I go into the city each day. Well I hardly do.

Anyways just wanted to say my piece lol. Anyways anyone else just now deciding to wait out till your area does have 5G before upgrading? Plus just thinking who knows maybe in Dec will get 5G in my area. But it not then. I guess might hold out longer.

Thanks,

Miyagi
 
Last edited:
Based on my personal overall use of my iPhone 11 Pro, I have no need to upgrade. And also, in my area of the country and most of my areas of travel I'm not gonna see any benefit to 5G for my daily use at all.
 
If anything, the 12 is future proofed for 5G when it is really rocking, so people who hole long, like me and upgrade every 2-3 years, at least we can enjoy 5g when it is more advanced. Coming from a 7 Plus, the 12 is dramatically different. Exciting phone to own.
 
Thanks for replies. Your right the 12 is future proofed. I guess when 5G is available for me I will have the full benefits of the new iPhone. Plus as I said in other threads will be going back to one handed iPhone.
iphone1105 said:
If anything, the 12 is future proofed for 5G when it is really rocking, so people who hole long, like me and upgrade every 2-3 years, at least we can enjoy 5g when it is more advanced. Coming from a 7 Plus, the 12 is dramatically different. Exciting phone to own.
Click to expand...
 
MrMiyagi1 said:
Thanks for replies. Your right the 12 is future proofed. I guess when 5G is available for me I will have the full benefits of the new iPhone. Plus as I said in other threads will be going back to one handed iPhone.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't call iPhone 12 future proofed - it gets you on the first chapter of 5G. Upcoming modems will support more types of carrier aggregation for much faster 5G.
 
  • Like
Reactions: boogas8 and 4sallypat
My iPhone 11 Pro Max was purchased on the Apple Upgrade Program last November. I am disappointed to learn of 5G’s limited advantages right now, and was thinking of not upgrading to the 12 PM this year. However, as I’ve thought it out, I’m going to go ahead and upgrade anyway.

My rationale......If it don’t upgrade now, I still have to make 12 more installment payments. I know I will definitely upgrade in 2021 to the 12s PM or the 13 PM, whatever it’s called. So, since I have to make payments anyway for the next 12 months, it might as well be for the newest phone generation. At least I’ll have a faster processor, modem, better camera, and the hopes of improving 5G speeds over the next 12 months.
 
We have 5g but i work from home covid or no covid so would hardly use it, plus you have to pay for a higher plan here.
 
if your only reason to ug is 5g, coverage is one consideraction but you should take into account a more efficient 5g modem that won’t use too much power which the 12 does not have this new modem.
 
MrMiyagi1 said:
Anyone else thinking of just holding off now from upgrading to a new iPhone until 5G fully arrives in your area.
Click to expand...

Only indirectly, MrMiyagi1.

I've lived through prior new standard roll-outs, so I already know it's not like 5G is going to "be here next Tuesday". Besides, from what I understand, implementing 5G isn't going to be like going from 2G to 3G, or from 3G to 4G LTE. In those cases, they basically just needed to upgrade existing towers and add a few new ones. 5G's effective range is a lot less, which means they're going to need a lot more tranceiver units deployed, which I can only imagine will extend the rollout process even further. And, I dunno about you, but I don't live in a major metro market, which means that even when 5G finally does hit those areas, I'm still probably looking at another 2-4 years.

So, frankly, I really don't care, anyhow. 4G LTE is great. At this point, unless I'm in a poor coverage area, the single biggest slow-down for me are servers on the remote end which are having bandwidth problems.

Right now, I've got a Moto G Power, and so my next "upgrade" would most likely be to an iPhone 11.
 
I love 5G as it becomes slowly mainstream like 4G LTE when it first came out with lots of growing pains...

Even though I don't stream or download stuff on my phone much, it's nice to observe the upgrades happening with low, mid and mm Wave frequency towers.

I am in a 5G area (Sub 6) and long range with modest speed gains.
Unfortunately, I am not near a short range mm Wave (24-28GHz) tower to see how really fast it can go...
 
I stream quite a bit, actually. Since I drive a lot for my job, I listen to Sirius XM, oftentimes via streaming instead of the satellite radio in my car because I don't get drop-outs that way, and the audio quality is far superior. Also, I use Audible to listen to the New York Times Audio Digest (and I sometimes have to laugh at how Mark Moran handles certain words and names) as well as audio books. Right now, I'm working my way through Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series, which is read by Alessandro Juliani. He doesn't just narrate, he performs the material, and is the main reason I keep listening to that series. (He's most famous for portraying Lt. Gaeta from the 2004-2009 Battlestar Galactica series.)

So many audio books out there are probably good but are read by people who just shouldn't be let anywhere near a mic.
 
I’m not even sure what a G is?? I just recently went from a 6 to 8 and total wireless according to the cards I put in each month is 4 G but I am not sure what G I’m currently on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back