When both Google and LG’s latest smartphone, the Nexus 4, arrived, the device’s specification stated that there’s no LTE support on the device, much to the disappointment of fans and owners. However, contrary to popular belief, reports suggest that the Nexus 4 may have a built-in LTE chip, which was discovered post a latest teardown of the device.
The new information has been revealed by the developers at the XDA Forum. The developers proved that despite the lack of a working signal amplifier and filter in the device, it’s still possible to force the phone onto an LTE network from the phone’s debugging menu, or at least on LTE band 4 (1700MHz and 2100MHz) on Canadian carriers TELUS and Rogers.
Nonetheless, it turns out that the Nexus 4 can reportedly do LTE only in Canada on Telus with 1700/2100MHz bands, interested users and fans just need to test it out. To do the test, users need to go into the Dialer app and input *--4636--* (that is *--INFO--*) and forcibly choose the automatic mode which also offers support for LTE.
As seen in the video below, after the Radio disconnects all current connections it will reconnect in LTE mode, if available. There’s also a speed test confirmation of this working. However, per a tipster who shared more information to Pocketnow, “the signal strength is somewhat weaker than on a One X but has confirmed it working on Rogers Canada too.”
The new information has arrived after an Anandtech report, last week, discussed the device and its capabilities, stating that "Band 4 (AWS) could essentially be supported with the power amplifiers and transceiver that already are onboard the Nexus 4, but again it ultimately comes down to a particular OEM choice whether these get supported."
“The rest of the LTE band support situation is similarly complicated, to say nothing of the political involvement required to support LTE and whatever CSFB (circuit switched fallback) or legacy hard handover is required for each carrier at present,” the report further added. “I have a feeling that Google wanted to get the Nexus 4 out the door quickly and without making a million and one models it would have to build images and OTA delta updates for, and the result is a pentaband WCDMA phone with DC-HSPA+ support.”
Check out the videos below.
