Oppo just completed its first round of 5G testing with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 modem

Oppo was able to reach the “experimental 5G speeds” in “a modified retail unit for its Oppo R15" with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 modem.

The next-gen 5G connectivity has been in testing since the summer of 2014, with more reports by telecommunication providers across the globe stating that they will be 5G ready by the end of the 2018 or mid-2019. It all sounds good and exciting, but all the development and work regarding the 5G protocol has largely been impersonal because of any lack of consumer-facing technology to give us a glimpse of what to expect. Especially since there is no consumer grade hardware for users and everything has only been limited to tests and some more tests.

However, it looks like it may soon become a thing of past in all reality. The reason for that is because according to reports by Chinese website MyDrivers, it is being reported that Chinese smartphone maker Oppo has completed the first round of 5G tests in partnership with Qualcomm.

The report pointed out that the company was able to reach the “experimental 5G speeds” in “a modified retail unit for the Oppo R15” while being powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 modem. The report pointed out that Qualcomm has teamed with “more than a dozen smartphone makers” so that it can deliver 5G-ready smartphones by the year 2019.

Diving into the technical details of the device, Oppo based the test on the 3GPP Release 15 NSA standard along with 10MHz bandwidth of 4G LTE Band 5 and the 20 MHz bandwidth of 5G NR n78 band according to the report. We don’t really have any communication expert or engineer to tell us the differences between the different bands and how Oppo achieved experimental speeds.

According to the report, Lia Chang, the President of Oppo Research stated that these tests will lay a strong foundation towards commercial released on the 5G network and devices next year.