In cooperation with Samsung, Qualcomm Technologies Inc. made an impressive showcase of both what its latest 32-bit silicon and LTE Advanced Category 6 are capable of. At MWC 2014, a special Samsung Galaxy Note 3 phablet outfitted with Qualcomm's supercharged Snapdragon 805 chipset and a Qualcomm Gobi 9x35 modem, achieved incredible download speeds of up to 300Mbps.
For comparison, the average American download speeds are 21.5 Mbps for Broadband, and 10.4 Mbps for mobile, according to Net Index. Obviously, that's not going to cut it for comfortably streaming 4K video, which is an important feature in Qualcomm's latest available Snapdragon 801 chipset. 4K content also serves to explain why one would need such manic speeds in a mobile device.
While the Snapdragon 805, which is expected to appear in devices from May, is a miracle on its own, the Gobi 9x35 is no small feat of Qualcomm's engineering. It's the first commercially announced 3G/LTE multi-mode modem based on 20nm technology, and is also backwards compatible to support all other major cellular technologies. This includes WCDMA /MC-HSPA, CDMA 1x/EVDO Rev. B, GSM/EDGE and TD-SCDMA. The incredible download speeds are achieved by combining two 20MHz signals to provide twice the amount of bandwidth.
This is great and all, but knowing you - our passionate readers, the burning question here is whether Samsung will introduce a Snapdragon 805-equipped Galaxy Note 3 soon. Frankly, firing up a factory to produce a single demo unit for show purposes doesn't make sense. And if Sammy has already put in the work to fit Qualcomm's latest silicon in its best phablet yet, it might as well manufacture this bad boy. Who knows, the Galaxy Note 3 might just become the first device to run on the Snapdragon 805.
However, it's likely that the renovated phablet will remain an exclusive to South Korea's SK Telecom for some time, if it ever becomes widely available. Such was the case with the Galaxy S4's Snapdragon 800-based LTE Advanced version. It was introduced in June 2013 as a South Korean device, a mere three months after the original Galaxy S4's glitzy March 15 launch event. It later came to a number of European countries in November 2013, and that was pretty much it.
Still, if Samsung ever decides to push an updated Galaxy Note 3 to the global market, we now have a pretty good clue about which chipset could power it.
source: Qualcomm via SamMobile
References: Household download index – United States
