Useless 4G Chip Discovered in Google Nexus 4

[Asrokhel]

Teardown reveals previously unknown feature.

Google's LG-developed Nexus 4 apparently features a previously unknown 4G chip.

Repair experts iFixit found that the recently released smartphone features a Qualcomm WTR1605L Seven-Band 4G LTE chip situated on its motherboard. It also sports a Avago ACPM-7251 Quad-Band GSM/EDGE chip for 3G support.

Although Nexus 4 owners will be delighted with their handset boasting a 4G chip, it's still missing several key components in order for users to utilize the 4G technology itself. A 4G antenna and power amplifier is not present, which leaves no way of enabling it.

The Nexus 4 is powered by a quad-core processor, Qualcomm?s Snapdragon S4 Pro, as well as 2GB of RAM. In addition to a 4.7-inch display with a 1,280 x 768 pixel resolution, the device also has a 8-megapixel rear camera, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera and supports wireless charging and NFC.

Within minutes of its availability on Google's Play Store, both the smartphone's 8GB and 16GB variants sold out.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Google-Nexus-4-4G-Chip,19197.html

[S7R1K3R]

It's not useless anymore lol

[(Spork)]

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1120146-nexus-4-has-a-lte-chip/page__p__595326812#entry595326812

[HawkMan]

Useless article. Petty much all mass produced mobile chips have all network types and bands supported, but just not the hardware to use them. Before BT was in every phone practically all phones actually had BT in the chip. But no antenna unless it was a BT phone.