Wi-Fi 6
smartphones
If you’re after a
Wi-Fi 6-enabled
smartphone, your
choices at the
moment are pretty
limited. Basically,
you’d better like
Samsung phones.
The Samsung Galaxy
S10 family of
smartphones were
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support Wi-Fi 6, and
this includes the
Galaxy S10, S10 Plus,
and the (slightly)
more affordable
Galaxy S10e.
Meanwhile, the
Galaxy S10 5G offers
both Wi-Fi 6 and 5G
support, making it
the best smartphone
if you want to
experience the latest
network technology.
These phones don’t
come cheap,
however. The S10
costs $899 for the
128GB model, and
features a 6.1-inch
QHD+ screen, 8GB of
RAM, and a triple-lens
rear camera, with a
12MP regular lens, 12MP optically zoomed telephoto
lens, and a new 16MP ultra-wide lens. Meanwhile, the
S10 Plus costs a huge $999 for the 128GB version, and
packs a 6.4-inch QHD+ screen, 8GB or 12GB of RAM,
and that same triple-lens camera. Even the supposedly
more affordable Galaxy S10e is still a very pricey
proposition at $749 for the 128GB version, which comes
with 6GB of RAM, a 5.8-inch 1080p screen, and dual-lens
camera. As Wi-Fi 6 adoption grows, we should see a
wider range of smartphones from a variety of
manufacturers being released with Wi-Fi 6 support, and
we hope that the new Wi-Fi technology won’t be
FRQÀQHGWRXOWUDH[SHQVLYHÁDJVKLSVPDUWSKRQHVHLWKHU- we’d love to see it appear on more affordable
handsets. At the time of writing, Apple has just released
its new iPhone 11 smartphones, and while there were
rumours circulating that the handset will feature both 5G
and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, it turns out that this generation
wasn’t ready for 5G just yet. They do support Wi-Fi 6
though – great news if you’re not a fan of Android. While
smartphone manufacturers are understandably more
excited about 5G support than Wi-Fi 6, our phones are
probably the devices we use the most to connect to
Wi-Fi networks, so we hope they embrace the new
technology with future handsets.
You can have any brand of
Wi-Fi 6 smartphone... as
long as it’s Samsung (for now).needs a fast and stable internet connection. Plus, with
home broadband speeds getting ever faster (for those of
us lucky enough to live in areas with decent infrastructure,
at least), there’s an added pressure to ensure that our
Wi-Fi networks don’t become bottlenecks for ultra-fast
fiber broadband.Expanding coverage
Another key advantage of Wi-Fi 6 will be expanding the
coverage of Wi-Fi networks. For anyone who’s had to put
up with a wireless network that struggles to reach certain
parts of the home, this will be good news.
One way that Wi-Fi 6 is improving coverage is with
beamforming. While Wi-Fi 5 also boasted beamforming
functionality, it could only support four antennas, while
Wi-Fi 6 can support eight. Beamforming essentially directs
Wi-Fi signals toward specific devices in various places,
ensuring that those devices get the best possible
connection to the wireless network. This is particularly
important for devices that move around a lot – such as
smartphones and tablets, which are carried around
your home.
Wi-Fi 6 can also offer wider coverage (and greater
stability) thanks to its longer OFDM [orthogonal frequency-
division multiplexing] symbol. Now, this gets a bit technical,
but OFDM is a way of transmitting data by dividing it
among smaller sub-carriers. With Wi-Fi 6, the OFDM symbol
is four times longer, which means there are four times as
many sub-carriers, increasing both coverage and speed.
To cut a long story short (and skip over a lot of jargon),
it should mean that a Wi-Fi 6 network will reach Wi-Fi 6
devices over a much wider area, such as multiple floors in
a house, while remaining fast and stable.
Wi-Fi 6 is also more efficient thanks to OFDMA (orthogonal
frequency-division multiple access), which is brand new for
Wi-Fi 6, although the technology has been used in 4G LTE
mobile phone networks. Essentially a multi-user version of
OFDM, it allows up to 30 clients to share a channel (rather
than waiting for the channel to become available), and can
combine different types of network traffic. Router makerWe hope to see W i-Fi 6 l aptops soon as well.
© Samsung52 |^ |^ December 2019