After years of using 4G,

5G networks are just starting to roll out.

And with that we should be able to see

proper gigabit-class speeds.

But if you owned a flagship in the last couple years

you might have noticed something strange, a 5G E logo.

So, have you been using a 5G phone

this entire time without realizing it?

Yeah, no.

Like 4G before it, 5G is not

as straightforward as it might seem.

There are several competing 5G standards

being built out right now.

For example, here in LA you can sign up

for Verizon's 5G home service.

This is using an early version of 5G,

which according to Verizon is good

for up to 20 times the speed of LTE.

And in the real world,

delivers about 300 megabits per second down.

Although theoretically, it can go up to

940 megabytes, completely wirelessly.

That's actually pretty good.

And it shows how 5G can be used, not only for your phone

and for your laptop and tablet,

but also it can be used to completely replace

a standard home internet line.

So putting aside for a second

that this isn't true 5G just yet,

there is a ton of potential here.

The final 5G spec calls for a theoretical maximum

of 20 gigabits per second.

Although realistically,

it's going to be much closer to one gigabit.

But that is still a huge huge bump over what we have today.

That brings us to 5G E.

Now this is short for 5G Evolution

and it is what AT&T is calling 5G.

Although spoiler alert, it's not 5G.

So to give you a better idea of what 5G E is,

we have a little bit of an example.

So, this is Pikachu.

And for this reference we'll call him 5G.

As you can see, he's very cheery, he's very happy.

All good, right?

Well, this is Mimikyu.

Now, on the service looks very similar to Pikachu,

except that he's really LTE

with some weird drawings on his face.

Clearly not the same thing.

Are you following?

Maybe I should explain this little bit better.

So if you take a look at the AT&T site,

they describe 5G E as quote,

"The first step on the road to 5G."

So it does support some additional technologies

that come with LTE Advanced.

Such as four-by-four as well as some

better streaming and better compression.

But generally speaking, this is not 5G

even though they're slapping that 5G badge all over it.

And if this all sounds familiar then you would be right.

Back with AT&T was transitioning from 3G to 4G,

they sent out an update to their phones

to change the badge to say 4G

when it was actually still on 3G.

Yeah, they're doing that one again.

So based on all of this, it seems pretty clear to me

that 5G E is not going to deliver

a true next-gen experience.

But to be fair, I think it's time to put it to the test.

So let's see if we can actually track down a 5G E phone

and see how it actually performs.

That was fun.

So, did not get a phone.

But we got some interesting information.

They did confirm that it does support 5G.

So I think the main phone I'm looking for is the V40.

Everything that I've read up until now seems to show

that that actually is one of the phones

that does show the 5G badge.

Unfortunately the store didn't get many V40s

and they shipped them all back

because they didn't sell them.

Oh thank you, I appreciate it.

So, we have an LG V40 that supports full 5G E,

at least I hope it does.

Now, I have to put a SIM card in here

and hope that 5G shows up

and I can actually test to see if it's any good

or whether I just spent $950 on a phone that won't work.

So, it is time to put a AT&T's 5G network to the test.

So the first bottleneck is that we actually might not have

5G E service here at the office.

I'm hopeful that we will but they don't really exactly

have a whole lot of information about it.

So I'm gonna put a SIM card in with actual data.

All right, so it shows we're on AT&T on LTE,

which is the correct thing because we should be on LTE.

But I wanna see if this actually will show us 5G E.

This V40 does have an update released on January 4th.

Oh, excellent, here we go, what's new.

5G Evolution indicator support added.

Okay, so there is an update for the phone

that specifically changes the indicator to 5G Evolution.

Now the question is, why doesn't it wanna download?

So we got the phone up to date

but unfortunately it still shows 4G LTE.

Now, this should theoretically show 5G.

The main issue is that there's not

5G service here at the office.

So the next step is to track down 5G

so we actually can test to see,

even though it's probably gonna be the same.

This isn't going to be a definitive test,

but all I want to know is this.

Does 5G E make any difference whatsoever?

So after taking a closer look at the 5G E coverage areas,

one of the major spots that they do have listed

is Los Angeles.

So we're here in Hollywood to see exactly

whether or not this is going to work.

Oh, oh, 5G E, we got it.

I actually legitimately did not think that was gonna work.

So what's really interesting is

if you look at the actual network page,

what you'll see is even though it says 5G E

it still says LTE here because that's what it really is.

I guess the first test is just to see how fast it is.

So, 4.6 down and 16 up.

Hardly a gigabit like they had promised.

Now on the other side I have the iPhone 10R.

Now this is a phone which actually is

listed on AT&T's site as 5G E compatible.

But if you take a look, I have four bars of LTE, not 5G.

It's the same thing.

But let's see if there's actually a difference.

Oh wow.

(laughs breathlessly)

Are you serious?

(laughs breathlessly)

Are you trying to tell me that 5G is slower?

To be clear, these phones are both on AT&T.

There's no difference in any way, except that

this one is like 10 times faster on the download.

29, 31, 35.

Are these settings the same?

Now we've gotta try like another site or something.

So because that seems very suspicious,

I'm going to try the standard Google Speed Test

to just see what we get.

All right, what have we got?

Oh, there we go.

Okay, that makes a lot more sense.

We're seeing way faster speeds on 5G E,

which makes sense if you think about it.

The 10R has a two-by-two LTE antenna

versus the four-by-four antenna on the V40.

Okay, let's do it one more time.

Ready, set.

There we go, yeah.

It's consistently pulling ahead,

this time actually by a lot more.

So the iPhone still does have

a little bit of an advantage on the upload.

But I mean the download is a big difference,

5G is delivering almost double the speed.

Now whether or not that's worthy of the 5G badge,

I'm not so sure.

I mean realistically the goal for 5G, proper 5G,

is over 10 times this speed.

So the fact that it's a little bit faster than LTE,

it makes sense.

So, what did we learn?

5G E is just another name for LTE Advanced.

And while it is faster, you shouldn't go drop everything

to buy a 5G E-enabled phone.

True 5G is right around the corner.