5G Phones Are Finally Getting Affordable
A wave of new launches from Motorola, Infinix, Realme, and Xiaomi shows 5G handsets creeping toward mainstream prices, led by the $699 OnePlus 8.
Phone launches basically stopped for a couple of months as the pandemic scrambled everyone’s plans, but the last few weeks have felt like a dam breaking. Motorola, Infinix, Realme, and Xiaomi have all pushed out new devices in May, and the common thread running through several of them is 5G that doesn’t require flagship money.
That’s the part worth paying attention to. For the last year or so, 5G has basically meant “pay a premium.” You wanted the new radio, you paid for the new radio, full stop. What’s changing now is that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 chipset is trickling down into a wider range of devices, and manufacturers are using it to build phones that are fast and 5G-capable without being priced like a small appliance.
The clearest example is the OnePlus 8, which launched at $699. That’s not cheap in any absolute sense, but it’s a meaningful step down from where 5G phones have generally sat, and it puts a Snapdragon 865 device with a modern camera setup and a 90Hz display within reach of people who’d normally shop mid-range. A year ago, getting 5G meant buying whatever a carrier was pushing as its halo device. Now it’s showing up as one feature among several on a phone that’s trying to compete on overall value.
Why this matters more than the spec sheet suggests
5G networks themselves are still patchy — coverage maps are optimistic, and most people won’t notice a dramatic difference in daily use yet. But phones have multi-year lifespans, and chipmakers know it. Building 5G support into a wider swath of the Snapdragon lineup is as much about future-proofing purchases as it is about today’s network reality. If you’re buying a phone now that you intend to keep until 2022 or so, having 5G on board stops being a nice-to-have and starts being a reasonable hedge.
The other manufacturers moving this month matter too, even if their specifics vary. Motorola, Infinix, and Realme all operate in price tiers where every dollar is scrutinized, and a resumed release cadence after months of pandemic-driven delays suggests supply chains are stabilizing enough to get hardware out the door again. Realme in particular has built a reputation on undercutting established players on price while staying close on specs, so it’s a company worth watching as this 5G-affordability trend plays out over the rest of the year.
None of this means 5G phones are suddenly cheap in an absolute sense — $699 is still a real purchase, not an impulse buy. But the trajectory is obvious: what was an ultra-premium feature a year ago is sliding down the stack, chipset generation by chipset generation. If Qualcomm keeps pushing Snapdragon 865-class silicon into more devices, and manufacturers keep using it to compete on price rather than just raw specs, next year’s version of this post might be about $499 5G phones instead of $699 ones. Worth keeping an eye on if you’re due for an upgrade and don’t want to feel like you bought the wrong thing in six months.