What are the Advantages of 5G plan on a old Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge?

[Kimmaz]

Hi. I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge that is about 5-6 years old. I try to save money by having a cheap Phone bill each month. I have a 5 Gigabyte plan that cost $21.50 USD, I only havve 4G speeds on the current plan.

 

I have been offered a new 5G subscription by a different phone company. It has faster speeds and I wonder what the advantages are on a older phone that only support 4G? Does 5G have other advantages that is not related to speed?

 

Should I go down to a 3GB plan with 5G speed, or stick to a 5GB plan with 4G speeds?

[ZetZet]

No advantages. Obviously. If your phone has no 5G hardware it can't use 5G, at all. 

[Dedayog]

21 minutes ago, Kimmaz said:

Hi. I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge that is about 5-6 years old. I try to save money by having a cheap Phone bill each month. I have a 5 Gigabyte plan that cost $21.50 USD, I only havve 4G speeds on the current plan.

 

I have been offered a new 5G subscription by a different phone company. It has faster speeds and I wonder what the advantages are on a older phone that only support 4G? Does 5G have other advantages that is not related to speed?

 

Should I go down to a 3GB plan with 5G speed, or stick to a 5GB plan with 4G speeds?

5GB with 4G.  

 

What do you do that would need 5G if you had a phone that could use it?

 

More speed isn't always better. especially if they retard your usage.  

[Zaptosis]

What many carriers advertise as 5G or "5Ge" is actually LTE advanced.

 

With the Galaxy S7 on stock firmware if you see a plus symbol next to LTE that means your using LTE advanced. True beam forming 5G isn't here yet & its still a few years out from mass adoption.

 

Obviously you wont have access to real 5G, but if carries are locking you out of LTE advanced unless you pay for 5G then you'll at least benifit from that. I personally have a Galaxy S7 & a Pixel 4a with GrapheneOS, but I still use the S7 as my daily driver amazing phone I love it.

[Motifator]

38 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

More speed isn't always better. especially if they retard your usage.  

Pepega'ing one's usage eh? I'll have to add that to my dictionary, lol.

5g could mean more signal lanes, not more speed. If you live down the rural countryside, you might get significantly worse than 4.5g speeds using 5g. Inside big cities, the same 5g connection could sky rocket on bandwidth. That's basically how 5g works.

On a phone that doesn't have it though? IDK if that one has it, if it doesn't, it won't mean much anyway. Especially if they uh... go pepega, I mean cap your limit of usage lmao.

[Dedayog]

18 minutes ago, Motifator said:

Pepega'ing one's usage eh? I'll have to add that to my dictionary, lol.

5g could mean more signal lanes, not more speed. If you live down the rural countryside, you might get significantly worse than 4.5g speeds using 5g. Inside big cities, the same 5g connection could sky rocket on bandwidth. That's basically how 5g works.

On a phone that doesn't have it though? IDK if that one has it, if it doesn't, it won't mean much anyway. Especially if they uh... go pepega, I mean cap your limit of usage lmao.

Yes, the official definition of the word, as used by mechanics and automotive professionals years ago. To retard (engine) timing.  Yes, it means to slow down and was used for people as well.  But it's still just word.

 

 

[Motifator]

10 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Yes, the official definition of the word, as used by mechanics and automotive professionals years ago. To retard (engine) timing.  Yes, it means to slow down and was used for people as well.  But it's still just word.

 

 

Yeah I know the retarder, found on buses, etc. 

I thought you were actually talking about pepega, a mental retard. Lol.

[Kimmaz]

My phone gets very hot to the touch after I did a speed test 3 times in a row.. I got 38Mbit/s with wifi turned on (55Mbit/s upload). I get 99Mbit/s and 101Mbit/s on my computer on the same fiber connection.

Then I got 37-39Mbit/s without wifi turned off (did 2 tests). I used bredbandskollen to test the speed. I did have spotify playing on the phone while testing tho.

 

I cannot see a plus sign next to LTE but I have "Vo))" above LTE. (near the top  of the screen)

 

Thank you for all your advice! I think Ill stick to my current payment plan and save money. I have used between 2gb and 4.5gb of data per month the past year and I get a discounted price on my current plan.

 

[Commodus]

15 hours ago, Kimmaz said:

My phone gets very hot to the touch after I did a speed test 3 times in a row.. I got 38Mbit/s with wifi turned on (55Mbit/s upload). I get 99Mbit/s and 101Mbit/s on my computer on the same fiber connection.

Then I got 37-39Mbit/s without wifi turned off (did 2 tests). I used bredbandskollen to test the speed. I did have spotify playing on the phone while testing tho.

 

I cannot see a plus sign next to LTE but I have "Vo))" above LTE. (near the top  of the screen)

 

Thank you for all your advice! I think Ill stick to my current payment plan and save money. I have used between 2gb and 4.5gb of data per month the past year and I get a discounted price on my current plan.

 

That "Vo" probably refers to voice over LTE (i.e. better call quality).

 

It sounds like the bottleneck on the phone is more its overall networking capability. Are both your phone and computer using Wi-Fi, or is the PC on a wired connection?

 

You might not even be in a rush to switch to 5G when you get a phone that supports it. Even LTE can be very quick if the phone is up to the job; I got an iPhone 13 Pro a year ago and still haven't bothered to get a 5G-capable SIM for it.