Samsung confirmed rumors Monday by announcing what it calls the "world's first commercially available LTE Advanced Tri-Band Carrier Aggregation smartphone." In other words, Samsung has swapped out the modem inside the Galaxy Note 4 for a much, much faster one.
The new modem can support three LTE links of either 20 MHz or 40 MHz. This improvement alone boosts the theoretical download speeds to an impressive 300 Mbit/s.
To put those speeds into perspective, Note 4 owners will be able to download a 700-MB video file in about 19 seconds, or 40 MB of music files in about 1 second. Samsung, however, took the Note 4 a step further: It also tossed LTE Category 9 into the mix.
Category 9 LTE supports even faster downlink speeds, up to a scorching 450 Mbit/s. Of course, this assumes such powerful wireless networks exist.
Korea's SK Telecom recently said it will offer LTE with tri-band Carrier Aggregation with 300-Mbit/s speeds beginning in 2015, but few (if any) other carriers have spelled out such plans. None of the US wireless network operators have made such commitments, that's for certain.
Samsung did not immediately say when the new and improved Note 4 will go on sale, or how much (more) it will cost when compared to the standard model.
The Note 4 has been available in the US since October. It sells for $250-$300 with a contract.
In separate news, it appears as though Samsung is set to discontinue the Galaxy Alpha after just a few months. Samsung first announced the Alpha in August, and it represented a sea change for Samsung.
According to ETNews, Samsung will phase out the Galaxy Alpha in favor of the Galaxy A5. The A5 is similar in design, but loses the top-tier specs and top-tier price tag. Where the Alpha cost more than $600, the A5 is closer to $360. Samsung is waiting for supplies of the Alpha to be exhausted before making the change official.
