back to article Samsung plans LTE Advanced version of Galaxy S4

Samsung is looking to shake off some poor recent sales forecasts for its flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone with the launch of an LTE Advanced version in South Korea this month, promising data transfer speeds up to double those of the current 4G handset. Head of the firm’s mobile biz, JK Shin, told Reuters on Monday that his team …

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  1. Tim 69
    WTF?

    One question... Why?

    What can I possibly do on a phone that requires 1Gbps download speed? And will it receive incoming calls when you are using the 4G connection? Unlike EE...

    1. Chris Miller

      Re: One question... Why?

      Apparently, you can download torrents of every Star Trek episode ever made overnight. Of course, this may make a bit of a dent in your 'fair usage' allowance.

      1. Danny 14
        Stop

        Re: One question... Why?

        indeed, so 1Gbps is what, 128MBs? so your 1GB fair usage will get eaten up in 8 seconds? Wow I can hardly wait. So accidentally click on a few wrong episodes in youtube or iplayer (so it buffers very very quickly) and watch your phone get locked out for the month.

        No ta.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: One question... Why?

      Not receiving calls when on 4G is due to a short term "hack". What actually happens is it drops to 3G when a call is made.

      There's still work to be done on 4G, they either send the calls over VOIP or something else.

      It's not a phone problem, it is a network problem.

      1. Gio Ciampa

        Re: One question... Why?

        "There's still work to be done on 4G"

        Ah yes... "It's not ready, but release it anyway" (surprised they didn't stick a Beta label on in a la Google...)

        1. Charles 9

          Re: One question... Why?

          Thing is, the technique needed to do voice over LTE is going to depend on the LTE data aspect no matter what. THAT part of LTE is already in place. Once a standard is settled, the implementation's mostly down to software, something Android can send down the pipe relatively easily.

  2. Byz
    FAIL

    How to kill off your market the sammy way

    So now no-one will buy their current model as it is now at a high price and obsolete after a few months :o

    Some dumb marketing there !

    1. Danny 14

      Re: How to kill off your market the sammy way

      not really, samsung have a history of releasing many SKUs at different price points. They still sell boatloads of S2s (still being produced in quantity at least!)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How to kill off your market the sammy way

      Now that they've almost killed off HTC with their dirty tricks campaign (paying people to rubbish HTC on forums) I can only assume Samsung is taking over HTCs "a new handset per month" policy.

      1. Shagbag
        Thumb Up

        Who cares? Go competition!

        HTC's star is in the ascendancy and the HTC One is getting (paid for) rave reviews everywhere.

        With the HTC One 'Mini' coming out (vastly superior specs to the S4 Mini), we're going to see some serious change in smartphone market share.

        HTC is the only serious competitor to the Samsung.

        Apple has made clear their strategy: Barbie phones for girls.

        And with no other competitor on the horizon (BB have said they don't like making handsets and they proved that with the Z10) , it's a 2 horse race for your smartphone pounds.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    1Gbps downloads (up to)

    there's your monthly allowance gone!

    ... and there's the 1GB downloaded over the limit, which will cost y

    .... there's another

    and as those £ are clicking away in the background, I'll rephrase the famous quote:

    There's nothing like a "full" HD movie with 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound (TM) on your 5-incher on a Sunday morning.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 1Gbps downloads (up to)

      And (for most people) where is the application that requires that of a mobile network? I'd be happy to get 1/100th of that speed 'reliably' across the UK - in reality I get around 1-5mbps down and 0.5-2mbps up.

    2. Charles 9

      Re: 1Gbps downloads (up to)

      Have you considered that (1) the S4 actually has a 1080p display, and (2) you can buy a dongle that lets you route the phone's display to an HDTV? Plus there are places where it's easier to go wireless than wired.

  4. Slx
    WTF?

    I'm not aware of *any* network that supports that level of data throughput

    Considering that first generation LTE is only being rolled out in most countries and mobile infrastructure is creaking under the data load from HSPA+ never mind LTE, I can't really see this as being much use to anyone outside of a laboratory environment.

  5. Slx

    I'd also just add that the reason I opted for a HTC One over a Galaxy S4 wasn't anything to do with the technical specs. I just don't think the Galaxy S4 is a very attractive looking device. The physical form's pretty bland, but what absolutely kills the deal for me is Touch Wiz.

    It had this ugly graphic scrawled across the screen with "Life companion" across it as if it had been put together in MS Word or something.

    HTC One's just a stunning looking piece of kit and as annoying as some aspects of HTC Sense UI can be, they're at least attempting to produce very elegant graphic design and innovative UI features.

    The iPhone's also a slick piece of kit, and a really nice design. I just happen to prefer Android as my OS of choice as I'm bought-in to the eco system at this stage and I dont' like the lack of widgets and app drawer on the iPhone. All that said, it's a stunning piece of kit.

    Samsung's top end phones hit all the marks on geeky technical specs. They've always got the latest and greatest chipsets and other niceties, but they fall down badly on user interface and physical form design sophistication.

    Ultimately, I think that's going to be Samsung's major challenge. HTC's re-emerging, Apple's never gone away and Sony's now producing some really decent looking phones. Nokia produces nice kit, but I'm not sure if Windows Phone will cut it in the long term.

    The typical life cycle for a smartphone is 18 to 24 months at best, so the market leader 24 months ago can go out of fashion very quickly. I would think Samsung's main focus now should be industrial design and UI design, not just cramming in more and more unnecessary tech that 99.9999% of the market can't use.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Fashion?

      "the market leader 24 months ago can go out of fashion very quickly"

      I thought this was a tech site.

    2. Charles 9

      For me, it was the other way around. I'm leery of any phone where I can't open it up, and that was the deal-breaker for me and the HTC One. When it comes to aesthetics, I could care less. Function over form for me, and the S4's bigger screen. I can always pick a bigger battery or add in a Qi charging plate. Options remain pretty wide open for me.

      As for TouchWiz, while I found the "Life Companion" thing rather tacky, the nice thing was that I could at least change it to something more utilitarian like a basic clock display. I rather like the simple swipe-to-unlock mechanic that's seemingly exclusive to TouchWiz, though. Plus I'm willing to hack a little which had enabled Google Wallet and kept the Samsung baggage to a minimum.

      As for HTC making a comeback, we'll just have to see. I don't expect Samsung to be sitting pretty, either. Will HTC be able to fire back when (not if) Samsung proceeds to develop a Galaxy S5?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And the point is. Let's see here in the UK we have limited 4G - that may change in the next 6-12 months but it's going to take some time to roll out to everyone. Now let's also consider the huge number of people who can barely get a decent 3G signal = lots.

    Will the telcos really be wanting to give people gigabit connectivity to their devices when at the moment I suspect most people barely manage more than a few megabits?

  7. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Those well-known marketmakers

    Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan wouldn't be involved in proprietary trading again, would they?

    We should soon have some firmer figures about sales from iSuppli, Canalys, etc. It wouldn't surprise me if the very high end of the market is starting to cool: smartphones are becoming standard so the novelty is starting to wear off and you can get pretty good devices contract-free for well under € 250 (ie. around € 10 per month on a two year contract) even if Mr Orlowski considers them landfill. For me, I reckon the XCover 2 looks good for bike tours with SD card and separate camera button. I've already got a Galaxy 8.9 so I don't need a high end phone.

  8. Brenda McViking
    FAIL

    Just because the UK lags behind...

    ...doesn't mean the rest of the world hasn't found usefulness for very high mobile download speeds.

    Blame Ofcom and the 3G debacle, some of us have had acess to LTE for years. Here, I can download that stupid 12MB attachment that some "reputable" *cough* big four *cough* firm sent me on my phone, remove the offending bitmap image, and then actually get it onto my corporate email account without it crashing and burning due to email size limits. In Singapore, people watch TV on the train - you guessed it, streamed through their mobile. Not going to happen with a 1Gig data limit, but 5Gig is enough.

    Not that the UK mobile network is all bad - I mean at least you don't have to pay to recieve phonecalls or messages as a matter of course, and there is actually enough competition to have sub 3-yr contracts...

    But yeah - maybe we should all slow back down to 14.4k dialup - should keep the loom smashers happy, eh?

    I think there are 2 problems with Samsung. 1) they're trying to keep the investors and banks happy, who are reliant on exponential, infinite growth to keep up with their predictions of ever-increasing profit. Even Apple are struggling with that one, and they have lots of wealthy fanbois throwing money at them.

    2) They keep announcing more variants of the S4. It's been out what, a month? and already - "btw if you wait a bit, we're doing a waterproof version" oh, and a "different coloured version other than black or white" and a "LTE-Adv version," and "a mini version which isn't really an S4, but we're calling it the S4 mini."

    It's no wonder no one is buying the flagship model - you've announced that there will be better versions coming out in a short space of time - way to put off those who want the latest and greatest and want it to last more than a month. Take a lesson from apple, gulfstream, all the automotive manufacturers - and keep your development models under wraps until they're almost out the warehouse door, otherwise you harm sales.

    1. Mark .

      Re: Just because the UK lags behind...

      "It's no wonder no one is buying the flagship model"

      Indeed this may well be a reason. But then if people are buying different Samsung models instead, why care - comparing individual device sales (as much of the media like to do) is flawed. No doubt we'll hear negative reports if the S4 doesn't meet its forecasts, but it won't matter if Samsung sales overall remain high.

      "Take a lesson from apple, gulfstream, all the automotive manufacturers - and keep your development models under wraps until they're almost out the warehouse door"

      Though we hear nothing but endless hype and rumours about the next Apple product, months or even years before release...

  9. a__d
    WTF?

    Isn't it a phone?

    4g... Whoopie do. My g4 receives email, occasionally looks up the Internet, but almost always when I'm on wifi, so I really couldn't care less about over priced not-very-fast mobile data connections. What it doesn't do well is make or receive phone calls, or fit in my pocket - so I mostly use 4g LTE for sending emails apologizing for the calls I missed...

  10. CyberAngel
    FAIL

    ERROR

    FALSE!

    No phone yet is capable of Full LTE speed

    and to make things worse

    some operators claim dual carrier 3G to be 4G

    4G was originally the LTE Advanced in top speed 1Gb (½G up)

    Please, please Bing this LTE thing...

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