With the official start of MWC 2019 now upon us, the first announcement of the conference itself (as opposed to the smartphone announcements beforehand) comes from HTC. The Taiwanese brand has announced a new 5G Hub to bring new connectivity to home and work, providing 5G hotspot wireless connectivity to up to 20 users.
In Australia, HTC will partner with Telstra to bring the HTC 5G Hub to market, and while it looks something like a mobile hotspot, in reality it’s more intended to be used as a home or office gateway device rather than on the go. Curiously for such a device, the HTC 5G Hub features a built-in 5-inch touchscreen; as you’ll see, this is more than just a 5G hotspot.
The centrepiece, clearly, is that the HTC 5G Hub brings 5G connectivity into your network, but being an HTC device, those who want to get into some serious VR and AR hardware will love this device; for example, in the future, users will be able to stream VR content from the cloud to a VIVE Focus headset via the HTC 5G Hub—no PC or unnecessary cables required—to enjoy a mobile, high-end VR experience in real time.
HTC Chairwoman and CEO Cher Wang said:
“HTC is proud to bring to market the world’s first 5G mobile smart hub.
5G will be the game-changer for VR and AR, and the new HTC 5G Hub will seamlessly deliver the great bandwidth of 5G to our devices, driving our vision of Vive Reality—a boundless, immersive environment where human experiences will come to the forefront.”
Internally, the HTC 5G Hub is the better parts of a modern smartphone, featuring Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 processor and X50 5G modem together with Android 9 Pie.
What does this mean? This isn’t just a pocket WiFi type device; with full Android on board, you can – in one device – enjoy 5G connectivity, watch videos, play games and more.
For those who want to go to the next step, there’s an Ethernet port as well which you can use for further connectivity options; connect the HTC 5G Hub into your switch, and wired users can get on board too. For further wireless options, you could connect the HTC 5G Hub into a Google WiFi setup or similar.
We’re going to catch up with HTC later today and try out the HTC 5G Hub; I’m looking forward to seeing what a device like this can offer.
It’s a pity its on Telstra. Would go nice with the new Optus 5g wireless broadband plans.
Snapdragon 855 processor and Telstra.
Any change from $1000 ?