Tech Transformers

Meet the $999 phone that lets you transfer files in 5G

We've just about got 4G internet on our handsets, but one company has made a cover for your smartphone that will allow you to transfer files such as videos and pictures to your friends at 5G speeds.

San Francisco-based Turing Robotic Industries has created a case called the Turing Armor for its $999 Dark Wyvern smartphone. The company began taking pre-orders on Thursday.

Turing Robotic Industries claims that the case, which costs $179 on its own, will let you transfer 3.2 gigabytes of data in under 25 seconds, which is roughly around the size of a two-hour high-definition film.

The solution is based on a technology called WiGig – a WiFi-like service that allows the near-field transportation of data. This means that a user wishing to receive files would also need to have the Turing Armor case in order to receive files at 5G speeds. And they would have to be close to the person sending the files. The transfer of files does not eat into your monthly data usage that you get with a phone contract as it works on this separate WiGig technology.


Turing Robotic Industries

SYL Chao, the CEO of Turing Robotics Industries told CNBC the company had been working on a chip that would enable data transfer at 5G speeds and only recently had a "major breakthrough" that has allowed it to be commercialized. That is why it has not been built into the Dark Wyvern smartphone.

"It's not there to replace standard 4G, it's complimentary to the 4G. Say you are in a room with colleagues you can transfer an enormous amount of file in a short amount of time," Chao told CNBC in a phone interview.


‘Trustworthy’

Turing Robotics is the latest in a line of players attempting to market their smartphones as secure and trustworthy devices. The knockout feature, according to Chao, is the company's own authentication key. When you go onto a website, there is data exchanged and this is done securely through so-called authentication keys to try and make sure nobody can intercept that communication. But the keys are issued by a third party. Turing Robotics has created its own keys in bid to make communication between users of its devices more secure.

Chao said the company has released a developer's kit that will allows app makers to create apps which include Turing Robotics's special authentication key. This means that users of these apps, which are approved by Turing Robotics, will be more secure, Chao claims.

"Turing Phone is about trustworthy communication. It is something that won't fail," Chao said.


$999 with no headphone or USB port

The Dark Wyvern smartphone comes in a 128 gigabyte version which comes free with the Turing Armor for $999. But it doesn't have a headphone jack or a USB port. Instead, these are built into the 5G case.

Turing Robotics is competing in an incredibly tough market which is set to slow. But still, analysts said

"In a market where 1.5 billion smartphones will be sold this year, there is enough cake for companies to all have a slice," Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight, told CNBC by phone.

"Companies like this and others are effectively exploiting the sheer size of the market to carve out a niche. In order to do that profitably, you need to be lean, efficient and have a compelling offering."