LG’s V50 ThinQ 5G.
Katie Collins/CNET
We still may not know when Sprint’s 5G network will be turned on, but we know where it’ll happen first and now, when its first 5G devices will be available.
On Thursday the company announced that it will begin taking preorders for its first 5G phone and hotspot, LG’s V50 ThinQ 5G phone and the HTC 5G Hub hotspot, this Friday.
The LG phone will be available for $1,152 at retail while the HTC 5G Hub will cost $600 if purchased outright. Sprint will offer monthly payment options for both devices, bringing the LG phone down to a discounted $24 per month when purchased on the company’s 18-month Sprint Flex program and the HTC Hub to $12.50 per month when purchasing that device on installment pricing.
Both devices will ship May 31. While Sprint hasn’t given an exact timing date for when the network will be turned on, the company has previously said that it would turn on 5G in Atlanta, Dallas and Kansas City in May, making it possible the nation’s fourth-largest carrier will wait until the last minute to reach that deadline. Houston will also get 5G in May.
Five other cities — Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Pheonix and Washington, D.C. — are set to get the network in the first half of 2019.
Chicago was initially on the list of the first four 5G cities, with Houston in the second group, but Sprint seems to have decided to swap the two for the first wave of deployment.
HTC’s 5G Hub is a hotspot and runs full Android.
HTC
Users who want to take advantage of Sprint 5G will need the company’s Unlimited Premium plan for phones, which at $80 for a single line is $20 pricier than the company’s Unlimited Basic offering. In addition to 5G the “Premium” plan also includes Amazon Prime, 100GB of LTE hotspot data and a Tidal HiFi subscription.
Those who want to use the Hub will pay $60 per month for 100GB of 5G data, after which it will be slowed to painfully slow 2G speeds, so those looking to swap out their cable for 5G may want to keep that cap in mind.
Similar to Samsung’s Galaxy S10 5G, which just launched on Verizon’s 5G network Thursday, the LG V50 ThinQ 5G packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, a bevy of cameras — three on the back, two on the front — and a large OLED display (6.4-inches compared to Samsung’s 6.7-inch S10 5G). The phone will come with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage (expandable via microSD) as well as a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.
Similar to the other carriers Sprint has said that it will also carry the Galaxy S10 5G this year.
The HTC 5G Hub, meanwhile, will aim to take on home broadband allowing users to connect up to 20 devices over WiFi. A 5-inch display on the device will display network details, with an ethernet port available on the back for hardwire connection. A 7,660 mAh battery will allow users to turn the Hub into a hotspot.