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The landscape of portable PCs is about to change asWindows on Armbecomes faster than Apple.
What is 5G?
A physical SIM card going into a Lenovo IdeaPad laptop.
5Gis currently the fastest mobile broadband standard available to regular consumers.
It operates on aWireless Wide Area internet (WWAN)that’s designed for long-distance connectivity.
5G is the fifth generation, whereas4Gis the fourth generation, and so on back through the Gs.
Remember when 3G seemed fast?
It’s not anymore, at least compared to the more modern standards.
Long Term Evolution (LTE)is a term tied in with 4G.
A physical SIM card going into a Lenovo IdeaPad laptop.
5G devices like certain laptops operate best on a 5G data pipe.
To connect to a mobile internet, a laptop requires aSIMcard (just like a phone).
PhysicalNano-SIMslots are common, while some devices rely onelectronic SIM (eSIM)to achieve the same goal.
HP Elite Dragonfly G3 and a Nano-SIM card ready to be installed.
Standout benefits of 5G includefaster data transfer speedsandlower latencycompared to its predecessors.
However, there are a few big benefits to having 5G capabilities in a laptop.
If your phone has a signal, so too will your laptop.
The Snapdragon X Elite CPU on a demo card.
5G connectivity especially makes sense for frequent travelers who spend a lot of time away from home.
I appreciate the offer of free Wi-Fi, which is usually enough to handle regular web browsing and communication.
However, that can change during peak hours when lots of customers are connected to the same Wi-Fi router.
The Surface Pro 9 pictured here will soon be usurped by the Surface Pro 10 with Snapdragon X Elite CPU.
Hotels and airports are the same, where there are often hundreds of people vying for some bandwidth.
Because anyone can join, bad actors may also want to snoop around.
It costs more to build a 5G laptop due to the different antennas and hardware layouts.
We’ll know more when the first PCs with the Snapdragon X platform are officially revealed.
HP’s Dragonfly G4 is configurable with 5G, as isDell’s Latitude 7340.
