Samsung and Verizon to launch 5G phone in 2019

Key will be a new, 4th generation multi-core AI Engine, drawing together the Adreno, Kryo, and Hexagon components of the SoC. Qualcomm says it'll deliver up to three times the performance compared to its predecessor in the Snapdragon 845, now found in phones like the Pixel 3 XL and Galaxy Note 9, by intelligently choosing which core to task each time.

Qualcomm's next processor that'll power most upcoming Android smartphones is called the Snapdragon 855.

The news comes after Bloomberg reported, citing sources, that Apple Inc is planning to wait until at least 2020 to release its 5G iPhones.

While 5G promises Gigabit speeds, low latency, and the means to rapidly stream content and take advantage of machine learning and augmented reality (AR) applications, the average consumer might not be particularly interested in such lofty goals - unless it relates to their own use cases. Initially, 5G will be available for AT&T customers using the Netgear Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot; it's the first standards-based mobile 5G device in the world that can access a live millimeter wave 5G network, according to AT&T.

You'll also need to pipe in enough backhaul connectivity to make it worthwhile.

At this stage little is known about the Snapdragon 855 but it will definitely support 5G, with OnePlus already stating that they will have a phone running it next year (there is speculation that it will be a phone other than the OnePlus 7). It's little surprise, then, that Qualcomm embedded a new computer vision ISP into the 855, so phones of the future will be better able to "recognize who and what you're capturing".

Samsung often only includes a Snapdragon chipset in certain versions of its flagship devices.

Optical sensors also require the user's finger on a very specific part of the screen to read it. It's the latest version of Qualcomm's flagship product that's been the heart of most smartphones sold in the past decade. "This transition is different to transition we had with 3G and 4G ..." Now with Qualcomm making a much improved under-display fingerprint sensor, we should see more, larger and mainstream companies using the technology.

The Snapdragon 855 likely will launch next year in devices like Samsung's Galaxy S10 and will let all of us do more with our phones than ever before. This is, after all, the next generation of mobile wireless - the one that will help drive economic growth, transform a broad set of industries, and change our lives as we know them - arriving just months from now.