Samsung Galaxy S10 5G: Launch Date & Approximate Price Revealed
by Anton Shilov on March 22, 2019 11:30 AM EST
When Samsung introduced its new family of flagship Galaxy S10 smartphones in February, the company disclosed prices and launch timeframes for all models except one, the Galaxy S10 5G. Based on two reports citing industry sources and Samsung, the manufacturer will release its first 5G handset in South Korea in early April.
The Korean version of the Galaxy S10 5G will be powered by Samsung’s Exynos 9820 together with the Exynos 5100 5G modem, essentially meaning Samsung will be the first to market with both a 5G phone and silicon. The 6.7-inch Galaxy S10 5G will be available in South Korea starting from April 5. Three South Korean carriers — KT, SK Telecom, and LG Uplus — will begin offering their 5G services starting on that date. According to a report, the Galaxy S10 5G has passed signal verification test by the National Radio Research Agency earlier this week, which gives the smartphone the green light to enter the market.
Pricing of the Galaxy S10 5G that is set to be equipped with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of NAND flash storage is not completely clear. Citing industry sources, the state-funded Yonhap News Agency reported on Thursday that the smartphone was expected to cost around 1.5 million won. Typically prices in South Korea have sales tax when listed, as do most of the world, so the pre-tax equivalent price in the US would be ~$1,199.
The Galaxy S10 5G smartphone will be available directly from Samsung as well as from the Korean telecom companies it supports. Samsung reportedly has no plans to run a pre-order program for the Galaxy S10 5G, but for those who register their devices from April 5 to April 11, it will provide a free pair of wireless Galaxy Air Buds, a wireless charger, or a 50% discount on display replacement (valid for a year).
Verizon plans to launch its 5G services on April 11. It is unclear whether it will start selling the Galaxy S10 5G on that date, or the smartphone will hit the US market a bit later after Mi-Fi services. US variants of the Galaxy S10 5G are expected to ship with the Snapdragon 855 + X50 modem hardware combination.
Related Reading
- Samsung Announces The Galaxy S10: 10th Anniversary Trio
- Hands on with the Samsung S10+, S10, and S10e: Which Witch is Which?
- Samsung Galaxy S10: First Exynos 9820 vs Snapdragon 855 Scores
Sources: Yonhap News, Korea Herald, Nikkei
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spaceship9876 - Friday, March 22, 2019 - link
so will it be able to make phone calls via 5g or will it have to resort to volte via 4g and older 2g/3g standards?Tyy - Friday, March 22, 2019 - link
You can only use 5g if both your phone and your carrier are equipped with 5g radioleexgx - Thursday, March 28, 2019 - link
i cant imagine why it wouldn't work, if you have 4g calling/VoLTE enabled phone it should work fine on 5G as its still LTE just on super low latency and speedsin my case it be EE UK only where 4g calling/VoLTE works on samsung phones as they dont burn into the rom the IMS settings for other 3 networks (3, o2, vodafone) normally
unless its a branded phone from them 3 companies, no Virtual provides have basic 4G calling at all
witch may start to become a problem as the big 4 cut back on 3G and convert it into 4G you have data but no call support like when your on 3uk in some places (as they still refuse to use 4G calling on anything but 4g800 witch is more or less useless for data, my pixel 2 none XL lacks the IMS settings so i am happy i cant use 4g800 any more), i had seen this issue on EE uk on my cubot 2018 power phone but lucky i was able to just add the APN called ims and has enabled 4G calling so i get VoLTE showing permanently now
rUmX - Friday, March 22, 2019 - link
Maybe the latter. 5G is still in its infancy.sonny73n - Friday, March 22, 2019 - link
$1200? You know I can make 10 trips to the massage parlor with this amount right. :)Chinese phones, here I come.
PeachNCream - Friday, March 22, 2019 - link
Happy endings and a phone instead of just a phone? Yeah, I think you're onto something good here.quorm - Friday, March 22, 2019 - link
Personally, I would never buy one, but $1200 for a phone with a cutting edge modem, however useless it is now, kind of makes more sense than $1000 for the same phone without.By the way, what's the status of vulkan 1.1 support on current/previous generation phones s9/s10? All I can find are a bunch of announcements from last year saying it will be out with Android 9, which has been pushed out. Any chance of a benchmark?
GlossGhost - Friday, March 22, 2019 - link
Are you not concerned of the possibility that better modems could come out by the time this tech becomes truly mainstream?jordanclock - Monday, March 25, 2019 - link
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make about quorm's post. He said this seems like a reasonable price for a production phone with cutting edge tech. Of course there will be better modems. But he also didn't say he was buying one, just that a $1200 price makes sense for this device but $1000 for a 4G phone is high.Early adopters do NOT care that better implementations will come along. They know this. They likely are the same people that can afford to buy the better versions when they come along.
Haawser - Friday, March 22, 2019 - link
$800 if you break the screen ? Hmm, maybe I'll just buy something a little less ridiculous. Like, say, a Unicorn.