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The mobile world might finally get exciting again in 2019

When one of the biggest "innovations" in smartphones in 2018 was the addition of a notch on the display, you know the industry has hit a rut.

With fewer big technical leaps between generations, there's plenty of evidence that consumers are starting to hit the snooze button on upgrading their phones. A year ago, smartphone sales fell for the first time, and they've continued to be on the decline. Consumers aren't embracing Samsung's latest flagship smartphones, which come with only modest updates, and Apple has ceased reporting its iPhone unit sales numbers.

That's poised to change in 2019. There are enough big upgrades worth talking about, from the advent of 5G (finally) to the debut of flexible, foldable smartphones. The completion of the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint -- still not a guaranteed deal yet -- could also shake up pricing plans and dynamics between carriers. Lastly, the ultimate fate of Huawei, which got thrown in the air when Wangzhou Meng, the company's chief financial officer, and daughter of its founder, was arrested by Canadian authorities.

5G

In a discussion about mobile, how can you not talk about 5G? The technology will get a decent kickoff at CES 2019, but you can expect the momentum to build through the year as carriers switch and more and more advanced cellular towers go up.

Ever since Verizon said, three years ago, that it was going to start field-testing 5G, the term's been one of the hottest buzzwords in tech history. The huge bandwidth boost, responsiveness, and ability to handle multiple devices with varying connection speeds is poised to change our lives -- one day.

Foldable phones

Foldable phones are either a gimmick or the next wave of mobile device design. But if nothing else, they add a new wrinkle and shake up the standard slab of glass or metal.

Samsung offered a brief glimpse at its prototype foldable phone, and it's likely we'll see the real deal early next year. The folding mechanism may be little more than a novelty at first, but so was the curved display introduced in the Galaxy Round smartphone five years ago.

Samsung provided a brief glimpse of its next big innovative phone.

Huawei drama

The world's largest telecommunications provider and second-largest smartphone maker has had a rough beginning and end of the year thanks to the US. At the start of 2018, Verizon and AT&T shut down the prospect of selling phones made by Huawei, which has been seen as too cozy with the Chinese government, and Best Buy outright banned all of its products.

Earlier this month, at the behest of US authorities, Canada arrested Huawei Chief Financial Officer Wanzhou Meng, who's also the daughter of founder Zhengfei Ren. Meng faces charges of utilizing American banks to help with sales of equipment to Iran in violation of US sanctions. Eventually, that curved display technology made its way to Samsung's flagship Galaxy Note line, and it's standard on all Galaxy S phones.