Samsung Galaxy Note7 may be the first LTE phone with 4x4 MIMO

Peter, 10 August, 2016

Samsung kept it hush-hush, but the new Galaxy Note7 is the first commercial device with 4x4 LTE MIMO thanks to Qualcomm's X12 modem.

It's currently disabled, perhaps waiting for testing to be complete before being enabled via an update. Also, 256 QAM may be enabled by such an update, pushing up to 33% more bits over the same number of megahertz. Combined, these will give the Note7 better reception and faster connection speed.

There are a few "ifs" to go along with that. Obviously, this is for the Snapdragon 820 model. The Exynos 8890 may only support 2x2 MIMO. Then again there's your carrier - T-Mobile in the US has some towers with 4x4 support, but overall it's rare. One place where you can try it is the Times Square T-Mobile Flagship Store. AT&T and Verizon aren't there yet - you can read an in-depth article on the state of LTE Advanced in the US here.

It goes without saying that this is just speculation for now, Samsung hasn't officially said anything about 4x4 MIMO.

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Reader comments

AnonD-367917
12 Aug 2016
H3F

Yeah I thought that a possibility as well, then I read the link in the article to try and garner some more info. It is future cell tower technology. New York has some infrastructure in place. Seems like a few chinese phones have this aerial ...