As a Nexus fan, this is my favourite time of the year, all the rumours and leaks for the next Nexus phone are starting to appear, and we saw a massive one yesterday from all people – Google. Now it looks like the next Nexus could have just passed through the FCC in the US.
US Site – Sprint4GRolloutUpdates(S4GRU) found that a phone from LG – model # D820 – has passed through the FCC for certification and shown off Qi wireless inductive charging as well as NFC antennas. The visit to the FCC is also for radio certification, where the model submitted contains radios for :
- GSM 850/1900
- W-CDMA 1900/2100+1700/850 (band 2, 4, 5)
- CDMA1X/EV-DO 850/1900/800 (band class 0, 1, 10)
- LTE 2100+1700/850/700/1900/800 (band 4, 5, 17, 25, 26)
- TD-LTE 2600 (band 41)
As the guys at S4GRU note, the LTE bands cover US Carriers – AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint, with Verizon left out.
So, you’ll note that the only useful bands for us in Australia – without going into WCDMA vs HSPA – is the GSM 850MHz band . What does that mean for us in Australia? Not a huge amount, phones destined for the Australian market aren’t necessarily going to show up at the FCC for testing as the bands we currently use for LTE here in Australia – Band 3(1800MHz), Band 40(2300MHz{Optus in Canberra and NBN Co.}) – are not usually used in the US where FCC testing is required, nor are the bands that we have coming up – Band 28 700MHz) or Band 7 (2600MHz).
The physical device lines up pretty well with the handset we saw in the accidental leak in the Kit Kat statue unveiling the other day, and if LG are making the phone and it is indeed based on the LG G2 – a 5″ phone – then the name Nexus 5 is certainly suitable, although a recent change to the Google Nexus page noted by Android Guys where it now says ‘Phones’ instead of ‘Phone’ indicating that it’s possible that multiple Nexus phones could be inbound.
My personal theory so far is that we will actually see multiple devices – A Nexus 5 based on the LG G2 and a Nexus 4(2013) based on the Motorola Moto X.
Final thoughts, it’s not time to stress yet, if the LG-D820 is indeed the new Nexus it’s highly unlikely they would release an LTE enabled model for the US only, there is most likely a second SKU kicking round with European/Australian LTE Bands similar to what happened with the Nexus 7(2013). If however it does happen, i`m all for sharpening my pitchfork, setting my torch aflame, ready to storm the Google castle.
Update:Ok, been looking through the documents as well as checking out places like Anandtech and it looks like there is a fair amount of details in the documentation.
Software wise, there are references to ‘aosp_hammerhead-userdebugKyeLimePieFACTORYeng.sangjoon84.lee.20130618.015154’ or as it’s now known Android 4.4 – Kit Kat.
Hardware wise, it’s looking likely that there will be a MSM8974 Snapdragon 800 CPU powering the device, Dual Band WiFi – 2.4GHz(802.11 b/g/n/ac) 5GHz(802.11 a/n/ac) – a 2,300MHz Lithium-ion Polymer Battery, NFC, Qi Charging and dimensions for the device indicate that the screen size is 126mm(4.96″) so Nexus 5 is looking very likely.
The other key thing to note is that the model# LG-D820 is similar to the LG G2 (LG-D800/D801). It’s looking real, so now we need an announcement date and just hope it’s a worldwide release instead of the staggered rollout we got for the Nexus 7(2013).
