MWC Day 0 – Folding space.

Everybody folds and 5G gets real-ish

Folding bandwagon

• In what has unsurprisingly become a crowded space, there is a lot of variation but I think the most impressive demonstration is the FlexPai from Royole which has improved massively since CES.
• Huawei has launched the Huawei Mate X which I think is a better design than the Galaxy Fold.
• This consists of a single 8” panel which a pretty square 8:7 ratio (not good for video) but folds (like the FlexPai) to give a 6.6” screen on one side.
• Huawei was quick to poke fun at Royole stating that its device was only 11mm thick compared to “other foldable phone” at 17mm.
• This is by nature of its hinge design which does make a difference.
• Huawei has also put 5G into this device which is partly responsible for the insane launch price of $2,735 or €2,399.
• Volumes at this price point are going to be almost non-existent as a knowledge worker could get a good smartphone, a tablet, and a PC for the same price.
• Huawei, like Samsung, was unwilling to let the press gets its grubby hands on the device implying that it is not yet robust enough for commercial launch.
• Hence, the flexible prize goes to Royole which will let anyone manhandle their product which has also improved a lot since CES.
• At CES, the folding motion produced glitches and screen flashes, but this has been fixed implying it was due to software rather than hardware.
• However, despite its apparent readiness, it is not as sleek as either the Galaxy Fold or the Mate X.
• Again, this is not a big surprise as the FlexPai is a developer device and does not have any particular requirement to be sleek at this stage although the design will need some refinement.
• This puts the total field at two launches, two concepts (Xiaomi & TCL) and one developer device where I put leadership as a toss-up between Huawei and Xiaomi.
• I think that the external folded design works better as only one screen is needed and the closed design looks a lot better than the pokey 4” screen on the Galaxy Fold.

5G

• The first of many 5G announcements and demonstrations to come had more realism in them than I was expecting for this trade-show.
• First up was the Spiderman demo from Nokia, Intel and Sony which is VR where show visitors, with plenty of time on their hands to queue, can get to experience what it is like to be Spiderman.
• 5G in this demo will connect multiple players in the same world but also the experience will be computed off-headset with 5G as the connectivity layer.
• This plays exactly to the one use case in VR that I think can make some sense for 5G: Cloud-based VR.
• Part of VR is very latency intolerant because when the user moves his head, the brain is expecting an instantaneous reaction from the world around him.
• The user can tolerate up to 20ms of latency before nausea begins to set in meaning that this is a use case for 5G in this instance.
• This is the same use case that was demonstrated by Ericsson back in December 2018 (see here).
• Outside of this, RFM finds no use case for 5G in VR and multiplayer gaming that cannot be adequately be fulfilled with 4G.
• It was also encouraging to see Inseego show their 5G terminal receiver products with a realistic frame of mind.
• The company would not be drawn on the price of its WiFi puck but it is clear that it is going to be orders of magnitude more expensive than the 4G equivalents which can be had for around $100.
• ATT’s Netgear 5G hotspot is an eye-watering $500.
• Furthermore, all of its products with 28Ghz or higher (mmWave) frequencies will have external antennas which the company expects to be attached to the outside of the building with line of sight to the basestation.
• Both of these demonstrations are in line with RFM’s view on the realities of 5G and its use case (see here).
• This is much better than expected and gives me some hope that the hype will not get too out of control this week.