Most of us have got decent WiFi in our homes, but step out the front door and things can quickly fall apart. Mobile data can be patchy, and even when you’ve got a good signal, your phone might struggle to keep up. If your downloads take days, and your streams stutter, a phone with 5G could fix the problem. Our best 5G phone guide will help you find the right one.
Why 5G?
Unlike much to do with gadgets, 5G is pretty simple to understand: it’s the fifth generation of technology used to send data to and from a mobile phone. There are three other things you need to know:
- 5G is faster than previous technologies like 4G and 3G
- 5G coverage is best in cities, but it’s improving all the time elsewhere
- 5G phones are ‘backwards compatible’, so they’ll work fine when 5G isn’t available
So exactly how much faster is 5G? Older 3G networks offer a typical download speed of around 8Mbps – enough to download a song in a few seconds. 4G is faster, with its average speed of around 36Mbps being just fast enough to support 4K video streaming. New 5G networks are managing 100-200Mbps, and the technology has the potential to get into the Gbps range. Even at today’s speeds, that means you could download an HD movie in less than five minutes.
Speeds explained
Data speeds are typically measured in megabits per second (Mbps), with home and mobile connections ranging from about 2Mbps (very slow) to a few hundred Mbps (fast). Very fast connections might hit gigabits per second (Gbps). It’s important not to confuse these speeds with megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB) per second – when it comes to bandwidth, bytes are eight times faster than bits.
How fast are typical connections in practice? Take a 100MB app download. On a 2Mbps connection you’d be waiting nearly seven minutes. On the average 4G connection (36Mbps) you’d be done in less than 25 seconds. A good home fibre connection (72Mbps) is twice as quick. At 200Mbps, your 100MB download would be over in just four seconds.
While 5G isn’t essential for most users, it will accelerate your downloads and streaming if you live in a built up area with good coverage. Buy a 5G phone and you’ll also be future-proofing yourself, and ensuring you can sell it for a good price later. So, what are the best 5G phones available today?
Apple iPhone 13 Pro
Price £949 (from Apple) get great iPhone 13 Pro deals on Mozillion
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Why buy?The best smartphone you can buy
The cheaper option Buy an iPhone 13
Forget 5G for a moment, the iPhone 13 Pro is simply the best smartphone available. First, it’s the latest generation of iPhone, which means it has a beautiful, robust design framing a screen almost without borders. Next, it’s practical, with waterproofing and a battery that goes on forever – 19 hours of movie playback good enough for you? On top of 5G support there are seven years or so of updates to look forward to, so it should hold its value brilliantly.
But then there’s loads of other great features to really lift this phone above the competition. The iPhone 13 Pro gets a special flavour of Apple’s A15 Bionic processor with an extra graphics core compared to the lesser iPhone 13. It’s simply faster than any other phone. The iPhone 13 Pro also gets a massive camera upgrade over regular iPhones, with larger sensors and lenses to make low-light shots even better. It comes with Apple’s latest photo and video features – including the much talked about Cinematic mode – and pro formats including Apple ProRAW and ProRes for video.
If this phone has a flaw, it’s that its 6.1” OLED screen – now with a 120Hz maximum refresh rate – can’t quite match the resolution of some rivals. The 1TB model in particular is also fearsomely expensive – but you can lighten the load with Mozillion’s great iPhone 13 Pro deals. And if the iPhone 13 Pro isn’t big enough for you, there’s always the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G
What if you want a great 5G phone, with superb cameras and an astonishing screen, but running Android rather than iOS? How about the Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G, the top-of-the-line model in Samsung’s flagship S21 range?
The S21 Ultra 5G kicks things off with a whopping 6.8” panoramic OLED screen boasting 1,440×3,200 pixels – almost a third more than you’d get on the iPhone 13 Pro Max. At the back, its quad cameras include a 108MP wide lens and a monster 10x periscope zoom. Taking a selfie? Will a 40MP front camera do?
This phone uses Samsung’s own Exynos 2100 processor, and it’s a bit of a beast. While it can’t match the latest iPhones – snapping at the heels of the iPhone 11 in 3D benchmarks – it’s a match for all but its fastest Android competitors. Add in waterproofing, and a promise that updates will continue as far as Android 14, and this has to be one of the best 5G Android phones you can buy.
Google Pixel 6 Pro
Price £849 (from Google)- get Pixel 6 Pro deals on Mozillion
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Why buy? Incredible screen and camera
The cheaper option Buy a Pixel 6
If the iPhone 13 Pro and Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G don’t do it for you, maybe Google’s Pixel 6 Pro will. It’s Google’s first attempt to go head to head with Apple and Samsung in the premium phone market, and it feels like mission accomplished.
Much of the focus at the launch of this big, unusual phone was on its Google-designed Tensor processor. While this gives it a performance lift compared to previous Pixels, its main benefit is powering the AI behind the phone’s most advanced features. These include tricks like speech recognition, language translation, and Magic Eraser – which can touch unwanted objects out of photographs taken with the triple-camera setup.
Elsewhere, there’s everything else you’d expect from a flagship phone. Its 6.7” OLED screen offers 1,440×3,120 resolution and refresh rates up to 120Hz. There’s waterproofing, and a 5,000mAh battery that can go all day – and then some. Like other Pixels, the Pixel 6 Pro will be one of the first phones to get security and operating system updates. The Pixel 6 range launched with Android 12, and Google promises updates to October 2024 – probably including Android 15.
iPhone 13
Price £779 (from Apple) buy an iPhone 13 for less on Mozillion
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Why buy? A superb upper mid-range 5G phone
The cheaper option? Buy a certified refurbished iPhone 12
What’s £170 cheaper than an iPhone 13 Pro, but still has most of its high-end features including 5G? Apple’s regular iPhone 13 might have a slightly slower processor, and a disappointing 60Hz screen refresh rate, but it’s still a brilliant everyday phone.
The iPhone 13’s camera is arguably the biggest ‘downgrade’ from the iPhone 13 Pro. It’s a dual lens setup, using smaller sensors that – at least in theory – mean inferior low-light performance. It also misses out on pro format support including Apple ProRAW for images, and ProRes for video. Will you notice? Probably not – it’s still one of the best for both videos and photos.
This is a belting 5G phone in other regards. It’s stylish, robust, has strong battery life, and is faster than any smartphone, other than its more expensive iPhone 13 siblings. If it’s a bit too pricey, you could opt instead for the cheaper iPhone 13 mini, or even a refurbished iPhone 12. It’s hard to go wrong with any iPhone 12 or iPhone 13 model, all of which have 5G support.
Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
Price £339 (from Samsung) – get Samsung mobile deals on Mozillion
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Why buy?A cheaper 5G phone, but still a great screen and camera
The cheaper optionA Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
Samsung’s Galaxy A52 5G is a seriously good mid-range phone. For less than £350 it combines a great OLED display with a deeply impressive quad-camera array, and throws in 5G for good measure.
While it’s not especially huge or powerful, it also comes with a 4,500mAh battery. Samsung says this will last for 15 hours of internet browsing or 20 hours of video playback. Reviewers have confirmed that the Galaxy A52 5G lasts about as long as the iPhone 13 Pro on a full charge – we’d expect around 19 hours on our test.
If you’re not bothered about the ultimate in performance, the Galaxy A52 5G is a lot of 5G phone for the money, but there is an even cheaper option. The Galaxy A32 5G has a more basic screen, but it also supports 5G, and costs almost £100 less.
