14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 7 at the start of the week, and much has been said about this flagship smartphone that has taken the market by storm. Many of its specs have been discussed in detail, but that doesn't mean that some new particularities wouldn't surface at some point.
In fact, according to a post on Reddit, Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 could be the first commercial smartphone to come with support for 4x4 MIMO. The feature is also called Multiple Input Multiple Output, and it uses 4 antennas to maintain a connection between the handset and cellular towers.
4X4 MIMO allows the device to receive data at faster speeds, but it can also find fallback channels in case the connection wasn't properly established through the 4 antennas. Support for 4X4 MIMO should mean increased battery efficiency, but that depends on multiple other factors.
The Galaxy Note 7 with 4X4 MIMO support has been spotted on T-Mobile
A Galaxy Note 7 with 4X4 MIMO support has been spotted at T-Mobile, although the US carrier only supports 2 network layers but manages to map them to 4 antennas in towers that support such connections. However, for the connection to work, both the smartphone and towers must support 4 network channels.
There's another detail that needs to be taken into consideration, namely that only smartphones with Qualcomm X12 LTE modems can support 4X4 MIMO. The modem is found in Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820, which means that the Galaxy Note 7 with Exynos chipset won't have 4x4 MIMO support.
The Galaxy Note 7 is expected to hit the market on August 19, and Samsung might also launch a 6GB of RAM variant in China. The variant could also come with 128GB of internal storage, and pre-orders are said to start on August 26, with the release date set on September 2. The price is rumored to reach $912.