Samsung Launches the Galaxy Note 4 LTE-A
by Brandon Chester on December 28, 2014 11:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Snapdragon 810
- Galaxy Note 4
Note: An earlier version of this article stated that this version of the Galaxy Note 4 used Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810. This is not the case, and the article had been amended to reflect the device's actual specifications.
Today Samsung has announced a new version of the Galaxy Note 4 which will be launching in the South Korean market in January 2015. There are currently two major models of the Note 4, with the main point of differentiation being the processor inside. Most markets received a model with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 805 APQ8084 which is a 2.7GHz quad core Krait 450 part. In certain markets, it ships with Samsung's Exynos 5433 which has four Cortex-A53 cores and four Cortex-A57 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration.
The new Galaxy Note 4 adds a third model to this mix. It comes with the same Exynos 5433, but includes Samsung's SS333 modem. Samsung's main advertising point is the cellular speeds that this new Galaxy Note 4 model is capable of. Exynos Modem 333 allows for 3x20MHz carrier aggregation, which will enable LTE speeds of up to 450Mbps on future LTE networks that support Category 9 UE. It can also reach peak speeds of 300Mbps on current LTE networks that support Category 6 UE.
In all other respects, this is the same Galaxy Note 4 that was launched not long ago. Unfortunately, there's no indication that this new model will reach markets outside of Korea. However, like the Galaxy S5 LTE-A, there's always the possibility of importing it elsewhere.
Source: Samsung Tomorrow
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londedoganet - Monday, December 29, 2014 - link
There's no information released by Samsung in the linked source that corroborates your claims. The processor isn't even specified in the press release.kyuu - Monday, December 29, 2014 - link
While you're correct that the source doesn't specify the SoC, we know that the 810 is the only possibility for an SoC that supports the 3x20 aggregation. The only other possibility is that they are using a separate cellular chipset. Besides the fact that there isn't any precedent for Samsung using a separate cellular chipset that I'm aware of, it would be a really odd decision since that'd increase the power budget significantly and result in substantially reduced battery life, among other things.Do you have any source to indicate the 3x20 aggregation is the result of anything other than moving to the 810?
Vegator - Monday, December 29, 2014 - link
It is my understanding that the Galaxy Note 4 uses a seperate cellular chipset (baseband chip) for both the Snapdragon 805 model (with separate Qualcomm modem chip) and the Exynos 5433 model (with separate Intel or Samsung modem chip). That's also why the mentioned model would be a relatively easy upgrade. The Galaxy Alpha is another example with an Exynos 5430 SoC coupled with a separate Intel XMM baseband/modem chip.So yes, separate modem chip are still used frequently in high-end devices. In fact you can't use Snapdragon 805 in another way (it doesn't have a modem). Apple also uses separate modem chips (Qualcomm) with its Ax SoCs.
kron123456789 - Monday, December 29, 2014 - link
"Samsung has a history of releasing rare Exynos-based models of flagship smartphones in Korea " - Samsung also has a history of releasing models of flagship smartphones with the new Qualcomm's chip in Korea(Galaxy S4 LTE-A with Snapdragon 800, or Galaxy S5 LTE-A with Snapdragon 805)milan03 - Monday, December 29, 2014 - link
There isn't anyting on their site that confirms 810 either. So officially, we really don't know if it's 810 or not. All they're talking about is improved baseband processing.It is strange since Qualcomm recently announced Cat 9 integrated support in 810, but there are absolutely no Qualcomm announcements following this Samsung presser.
It could very well be a standalone Samsung's in-house Shannon Cat 6 (upgradable to 9) baseband processor + one of the existing SoC already commercially available. No HEVC support listed in Samsung page is interesting as well.
Klug4Pres - Monday, December 29, 2014 - link
I agree with Vegator. It would be astonishing and headline-grabbing news for a Snapdragon 810 to be released th is early, so much so that the author has jumped the gun. Hard to believe.hrrmph - Monday, December 29, 2014 - link
The real battle in the high-end market for phones and tablets right now is all about worldwide coverage. Apple just pulled way out ahead in this game by supporting more 4G LTE bands than most of the competition. I think they are now supporting 12 bands of 4G LTE coverage.Samsung *needs* to get more coverage on more LTE bands to be taken seriously for worldwide personal and business travel. Especially on tablets.
6 bands of coverage just isn't enough for a high-end device when the 4G spectrum is split into 40+ bands worldwide.
At the lower end of the market, it is forgivable to be forced back to 3G when traveling. But, at the high-end we need about 20 bands of coverage to really be able to properly cover the "Worldwide-Device" market.
Not all 40+ bands are currently in use, and most carriers offer a choice of 2 bands. So generally speaking, 20 bands would probably provide 99.99% coverage.. for now. Apple's 12 bands probably provide 95+% world-wide coverage at the moment.
As far as aggregating bands for higher speed: Meh. Properly cover the world's bands first so there can be a reasonable expectation that basic 4G will work, then we can talk about the 1% of the surface of the Earth that is capable of providing a higher signal.. like Korea.
GC2:CS - Monday, December 29, 2014 - link
Apple iPhone 5 got three versions with up to 5 LTE bands at up to 100 Mbit per second.iPhone 5C and 5S support 13 LTE bands in a single version (I think) at up to 100 MBits/s
iPhone 6 and 6+ already have support for 20 LTE bands, the most of any phone at speeds up to 150 Mb/s
Considering Apple's current iPhone lineup they are pretty serious about coverage.
mfmx - Thursday, January 1, 2015 - link
The number of supported bands are actually irrelevant, several of the iPhone bands are used in Japan only (and you probably can't roam on them with a foreign SIM-card or even prepaid Japanese SIM-card). while it doesn't support T-mobile on band 12... Actually Nexus 6 has better (i.e. more relevant to most people) LTE band support than iPhones 6.Also Apple gives the operator the possibility to restrict tethering/wifi hotspot and you can only use LTE if the operator has approved the iPhone 6, no thanks...
tipoo - Monday, December 29, 2014 - link
When are we going to get those A53s and A57s in any shipping product in North America?