Early 5G compatibility gives us a Snapdragon 855 in a mobile hotspot! By Ron Amadeo
The era of 5G mobile networks is quickly approaching, and while there isn't any smartphone out yet sporting the new network connectivity, AT&T says that "select" early adopters will soon be able to jump on AT&T's mobile 5G mmWave service with a mobile hotspot. AT&T's 5G service kicks in on December 21 in some cities, which AT&T says makes it "the first and only company in the US to offer a mobile 5G device over a commercial, standards-based mobile 5G network."
The hotspot hardware is a "Netgear Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot," which Netgear is calling the "first standards-based mobile 5G device in the world." Netgear's 5G hotspot comes in at a pricey $499 and sounds ridiculously overbuilt. Despite being a mobile router/modem that has very little to do computationally, the Nighthawk is packing one of the newest, fastest SoC's on Earth, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC.