While Samsung’s new “Infinity Display” on the Galaxy S8 has drawn most of the attention, the handset also claims a quieter but significant milestone: it’s the first smartphone to support gigabit LTE.
Qualcomm announced last year that the first gigabit LTE-capable smartphone would arrive in the first half of 2017. Many industry watchers suspected Samsung’s flagship would be the device in question, and the Galaxy S8’s full reveal confirmed those expectations.
Under the hood, the Galaxy S8 uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835, which includes the X16 modem capable of gigabit LTE speeds. For most consumers this is largely future-proofing: widespread networks and real-world conditions that deliver those theoretical top speeds are still some years away.
T-Mobile demonstrated what gigabit LTE on the Galaxy S8 can look like in an ideal lab environment, producing impressive results under controlled conditions.
In testing by Ookla, the Galaxy S8 recorded an average download speed of 854.50 Mbps and an upload speed of 61.12 Mbps. By comparison, last year’s Galaxy S7 used an LTE Category 9 modem with a maximum download speed of 450 Mbps, so the S8 marks a notable jump and provides ample headroom for future network improvements.
Prior to the Galaxy S8 launch, Qualcomm — together with Netgear, Ericsson, and Australian carrier Telstra — introduced the first consumer product to support gigabit LTE: a mobile hotspot. That device operated on Telstra’s existing LTE network and combined multiple technologies, including carrier aggregation, to reach higher throughput.
In simulated tests the hotspot delivered average speeds ranging from 112 Mbps to 307 Mbps, with a peak observed speed of 533 Mbps. Those figures illustrate that while gigabit-capable devices are appearing, achieving a sustained full gigabit in real-world deployments remains challenging.
Looking ahead, Qualcomm has targeted the first half of 2018 for its first 5G-capable modem, the X50. Whether the Galaxy S9 or another handset will adopt that modem first remains to be seen.
When do you predict the industry will routinely deliver gigabit LTE speeds? Let us know in the comments.