Smartphones with the 5G connection are very close, although everything will happen in a slower way than what has been announced. A few months ago the standard was completed, so the different component manufacturers announced their respective modems. Intel, Qualcomm, and even Samsung put their bets on the table to include in future phones.
OPPO does not want to be less and has already made its own tests. The Chinese manufacturer already expressed its desire to be one of the first manufacturers to put into circulation a compatible phone with 5G mobile networks, very different case is whether these networks are available or not in our area. The deployment, as happened with the 4G and past generations, will be slow.
A modified Helio P60
The intention of OPPO is, as we said, to have your 5G mobile phone as soon as possible, and for that, you have used a current phone and made some modifications. Specifically, the guinea pig of the manufacturer has been the OPPO R15, a phone that arrived on the market last April 2018 and did so with the Helio P60 on board, a processor with a 4G chip on board, and without overtones of being converted into a 5G processor in the future.
OPPO adapted this phone to the needs of the 5G, attaching a compatible 5G modem to the phone’s motherboard, thus canceling the one included in MediaTek’s own SoC. Thanks to these modifications, the manufacturer have been able to perform various compatibility tests in order to include modifications in their future phones, in addition to these may have a processor with a built-in 5G modem, such as that offered by the Snapdragon 855.
The OPPO R15 has completed a 5G connection with a compatible modem, but the name of the OPPO with native 5G is still unknown
In fact, OPPO collaborates closely with Qualcomm since the last Beijing Olympics in 2018, when both inaugurated a 5G pilot program to explore the possibilities of this new wireless communication standard. Subsequently, OPPO has continued to make various advances in the field and has finally successfully completed its first data connection under 5G networks in Shenzhen, China.
We still do not know which OPPO model will be the first to carry the aforementioned 5G modem included in the Snapdragon 855, which apparently can be the Snapdragon X50 that the Americans slipped some months ago. We will be attentive because the CES of Las Vegas, the technology fair that opens every year, may have OPPO presence, now international, and maybe also its first 5G phone. Will it really be the first to land? Let us wait.