Vivo NEX 5G Prototype With Snapdragon 855 Displayed In China

Chinese phone maker Vivo has just showcased its upcoming 5G variant of the Vivo NEX smartphone during a Xinhua News Agency media conference. Being showcased at the Qualcomm booth, the device is reportedly powered by the upcoming Snapdragon 855 SoC which features the X50 LTE modem that supports 5G connectivity.

During the recent China Mobile Global Partner Conference, many phone maker such as Vivo, Xiaomi and Oppo had showcased their own 5G prototypes. In the event, Vivo showed a variant of its flagship Vivo NEX with 5G capabilities. Now, the same model has just been displayed at the Xinhua News Agency media event.

Vivo had already confirmed in August that the development of the 5G Vivo NEX had been finished. Because this 5G variant is modified from the standard Vivo NEX so it required R&D team of Vivo to tweak the device’s architecture planning, motherboard stacking, optimizing battery life to make it ready for 5G and the RG and antenna design as well.

Vivo was among the first OEMs in China to establish 5G R&D. The phone maker started developing a 5G smartphone in 2016 and it built a dedicated 5G R&D facility in the following year. Its 5G model is expected to debut in 2019 to compete against its rivals such as Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, OnePlus and other brands.

For now, Vivo hasn’t mentioned anything about the availability and pricing of this 5G Vivo NEX. The recently-released Vivo NEX Dual Display comes with 10GB RAM though it’s not clear whether the upcoming 5G model will also have 10GB RAM or not.

Vivo NEX Dual Display Edition was recently released with 10GB RAM

Vivo will most likely debut the 5G model in MWC 2019. The competition will be very intense as other phone makers have also been developing a 5G smartphone of their own. Despite Vivo early debut of this 5G phone, it will have to come up with a solid one with a premium feature and design to gain some early advantages over the others.