CES 2019: Verizon's First 5G Smartphone, Motorola Moto Z3, Confirmed

Verizon's first 5G smartphone has been revealed and it is no other than the Motorola Moto Z3. This was revealed by CEO Hans Vestberg backstage during his CES 2019 keynote presentation on Monday at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas Valley, Nevada.

For those who may already be familiar with it, the Motorola Moto Z3 was already launched back in August as a 4G phone. For it to function with 5G capability, an optional Moto Mod attachment would be needed to make it work, CNet reported.

Looking ahead, the Moto Z3 will simply break the ice before a second device is ready to crash the 5G party. Vestberg revealed that their second 5G device will be a Samsung smartphone, calling to mind the device that was teased at the Snapdragon Tech Summit just last month. He adds that this will be an exclusive deal despite previous announcements from AT&T and Sprint of carrying Samsung handsets on their roster as well.

The Verizon CEO did not provide details on when the exact launch of the 5G Moto Mod will happen. However, there are some who believe that this could happen by late February when Samsung launches its Samsung Galaxy S10 5G variants at the Mobile World Congress 2019.

Assuming that everything falls into place, such would give Verizon a clear advantage over the rest as the first outlet to offer a 5G service with a smartphone. 5G has been the main topic at the CES 2019, a development that should give consumers a big boost in terms of speed and network responsiveness.

AT&T did launch 5G mobile back in December although it left a lot to be desired. Users from select regions could only hook on to the network via WiFi hotspots and not from a smartphone.

2019 is slowly shaping up as the year of connectivity improvement with incremental rollouts of the 5G service. T-Mobile has also promised to roll out broader commercial service early this year while Sprint and LG have also vowed to release their own first 5G smartphone.