While the phone has been met with good critical success, the main deterrent for the device is its lack of LTE support. While LTE may not be everywhere in the U.S., the major carriers all plan to blanket the nation by the end of next year.
iFixit has completed their teardown of the device, and strangely found an LTE radio chip.
The chip is the Qualcomm WTR1605L, which supports all known LTE networks around the world, but remains dormant as the phone uses a pentaband HSPA+ chip instead.
While the dormant chip is certainly interesting, there is very little devs can do with it. iFixit says there is no LTE power amplifier on board, and they believe the chip may be permanently disabled.
Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 18 Nov 2012 15:10
