We’ve recently heard from a source who is in-the-know for Telstra news that Australia’s biggest carrier is planning to launch the Galaxy S II 4G and Galaxy Note — both from Samsung, of course — in the near future as both are appearing in Telstra’s internal systems. Take it with a grain of salt, but it’s certainly plausible, especially the Galaxy Note. There’s a LTE version of the Galaxy Note headed to AT&T in the US; and Bell, Rogers and Telus in Canada — all of which use 850MHz 3G — in February, which could certainly have 1800MHz LTE packed in it. We also know that Samsung has confirmed the Galaxy Note is coming to Australia, and we’ve heard that Vodafone are also testing it.

As for the Galaxy S II 4G, it could either be the normal Galaxy S II available now except with a 4G modem in it, or it could be the upcoming Galaxy S II Plus that’s expected to launch at MWC later this month. The Galaxy S II Plus apparently has a faster 1.5GHz dual-core Exynos CPU and a slightly different button set up to better suit Android 4.0.

If this all plays out correctly, we should see announcements made around Mobile World Congress and launch dates soon afterwards.

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Tuna

I thought the GSII already had the 4G capability??

Buzz Moody

Negatory.

Max Keys

I’ve got the Atrix 4G, you’re not going to try and tell me this isn’t real 4G are you?? I changed the apn from Telstra.iph since that is clearly for iphones only and they are only 3g, now I get super fast 4G speeds to match my phone’s blistering performance

Buzz Moody

I’m not going to try to tell you, I AM going to tell you: Your phone is not 4G. It’s only 14.4Mbps HSPA. It’s not even HSPA+. You’ve been conned by marketing. 

Max Keys

What? No way! But it says 4G on the box why would they lie? Maybe it’s only 4G when I use it in the US then.

Buzz Moody

It’s not lying, it’s stretching the truth.. badly.

spamazoid

Australia still doesn’t have real 4G coverage anyway, it’s all marketing hype by all telco’s. the best you could get is 3G.  Not just Telstra that lies, Vodaphone and Optus are full of shit too infact they are worse, least Telstra owns the infrastructure, the other 2 just rent in most cases.

Billythegoat

lol 3G is even hard to find my phone is forever dropping out and changing back to 2G   . Canberra .

Petcomputer123

4G as in name only, like commodore64. its not 64 for anything, i think. 

Max Keys

So it’s not for 64 bit? You people are turning my world upside down!

Buzz Moody

Welcome to Australia, where everything is upside down.

Billythegoat

And where we receive technology’s a year later than everyone else 🙁 

spamazoid

Commodore64 had 64K of memory hence the 64, the Vic20 had 20k
Amiga 500 had 500k of memory, get the idea?

Billythegoat

 4.0-in even wow that’s a nice looking phone cant believe iv never herd or seen it b4 :O wtf 

Daniel Meng

I love how not a single comment posted here talked about the frequencies of the Telstra 4G/LTE network…. ATT phones will not work nor will any other international LTE/4G capable phone… ATT – 700MHz Telstra – 1800MHz (aka the old 2G network) Verizon – 700MHz Spint WiMax – 2.5GHz So as you can see the radios run on different frequencies. This can not be changed by just flashing but is reliant on the physical hardware it self. I did see in a Telstra store while getting my Galaxy Nexus that in the list of phones on the computer was a “Samsung SII 4G”… Read more »

Anonymous

Well wrong, my mates imported HTC Amaze 4G works perfectly fine here… .he had 4G long before Telstra released the same phone

Mike Tran

 He doesn’t have a 4G phone, There’s no network in the world with true 4G (LTE Advance). HSPA+/WiMax/LTE are all marketed as 4G in USA. What your friend has is just a another HSPA+ phone which most smart phones in AU are ANYWAYS.

Anonymous

Now I’m confused. So the HTC Amaze or velocity or whatever that telstra just released is not 4Gat all, but a highly tuned H+ device that gets 40Mbps. But my Attain 4G aka Galaxy SIIT is also 4G/H+ as you say, yet on average doesnt get more than 4Mbps.Why is that? I am on Telstra also. So if what you are saying is true, the performance should be equal no?

Anonymous

The manufacturers make the phones for a global market meaning they support multiple networks.

Mike Tran

Not when LTE takes off, There’s 43 different Freq’s that LTE will be running on. There won’t be a thing as a Global LTE phone ANYTIME soon, You’ll need a phone that does 3G at 2100mhz if you want a truely global phone.

Mike Tran

 Don’t forget Both AT&T and Verizon uses different 700mhz spectrum too, I think AT&T uses 700-735mhz while Verizon uses 755-780mhz , T-Mobile will be 2600mhz. So in reality LTE is not going to unite the world like GSM kind of did but rather make it WAY WORST as there’s 39 different freqs that LTE will be deployed at. It’s seriously going to be a huge mess in a few years

Mike Tran

Unless Samsung has done something magical to get LTE chipset to work with Exynos processors then I highly doubt the SGSII Plus or the Note will have it, It’d just be Snapdragon S3’s at 1.5ghz much like the American SGSII Skyrocket and Note LTE.

Anonymous

It’s the 1.5 Ghz Qualcomm CPU in the Note 4G

Nathsgames

Awesome news, especially if the Note is an LTE version! That will save me from importing an AT&T one on the 13th Feb.

AlexGerontzos

Hmm I have the galaxy s2 t989 from t mobile imported from the states, worked out $20 cheaper than buying the Aussie s2 both brand new, I don’t think I have 4g but I haven’t gone closer into the CBD to find out if that’s the case I should be able to flash the radio to utilize the 4g network? It is a 4g phone and have been able to bench 18mb download speed from that download tester app. On Telestra of course.

Anonymous

Must be 4G if you’re getting 18MB down? My Galaxy S II 9100T only gets 8MB down on HSPA with Telstra?? Anyway if it’s not 4G you can’t just flash 4G radio, the LTE radio is hardware.

AlexGerontzos

can we upload pics anywhere? i have made a screenshot of it to prove it.. Cool so it must be 4g awesome! problem is it doesn’t show the 4g logo but 3g.. so that’s why I questioned it.. Nearly had a one on one with one of the girls at telestra when I switched over she was telling me that I wouldn’t get good reception with the phone funny that now I have not left 3g since moving from 3 to telestra..

Anonymous

I believe you LOL, HSPA does max out at 21MBps but I have never seen it on any Australian phone…. good work. 4G phones have a 4G logo that displays. The Telstra test HTC I used last hit 34mbps in the middle of a shopping centre! My Galaxy S II right next to it only got 4.3mbps! I was slightly deflated when I walked out!

Taki

Wasn’t your SGS2 competing with MANY other phones while the 4G HTC was possibly using the whole available bandwidth? We should see more real field results with more concurrent users. And it will take some time to tune up the network to get decent advantage for the 4G.  

Mike Tran

 You don’t have 4G, You just have Category 20 HSPA+ which maxes out at 42Mbps.

Anonymous

So why does the 4G logo illuminate then? If it’s being marketed as 4G, sold as 4G and the phones switch from 3G icon to 4G icon then I’m happy enough with that, what ever they call it behind the scenes.

Mike Tran

The SGSII T989 is just T-Mobiles version of SGSII with Snapdragon CPU (slower) , AWS and HSPA+ . It says 4G because in America they market HSPA+/WiMAX and LTE to be 4G to confuse customers while in AU (and rest of world) we don’t consider HSPA+ to be 4G but LTE (LTE Advance is true 4G) to be. What you are seeing is Telstra’s 850mhz HSPA+ network at it’s best and not 4G. AU plans on using 1800mhz for LTE anyways so even if you had a LTE phone from USA it won’t work in AU as they use 700mhz… Read more »

Daniel Meng

Did not see this comment but i agree entirely…. 😀 See above post lol

Anonymous

Well it’s still shite loads faster than current 3G, 34Mbps compared to 3.4Mbps, I would take that anyday, who cares what they call it!

Mike Tran

 Your phone isn’t 3G, IT’s HSPA+ anyways , Just depends on your network and how congested it is and how fast you want your battery to die. Seriously You don’t know much about telcos/networks and phones do you?

Nathsgames

Ah yeh done that. And thanks I am well aware of HSPA, +, etc. The best I have ever had off my phone is 8Mbps down, ever and that was in HSPA +. And I happen to know a fair bit about phones having worked for a licenced Telco for 6 years and pretty much have owned most Androids in the country and tested a fajr amount of roms in my time. My SGSII is on its fourth iteration of ICS now and after ironing out a lot of bugs myself, runs perfectly fine. Except we always want faster dont… Read more »

Thedevs

Keep in mind Telstra will be moving to 700mhz once the analogue TV signal is totally turned off in 2013.
Might pay to hold off until then if you really want a world phone

AlexGerontzos

I been on xda alot after getting the t989 and it turns out that the skyrocket and t989 are like brother’s and share the same software so if either way i will get ics both phones have devs working on it. Theres a good alpha rom atm but the dev had bricked his phone so just waiting on a replacement. And good new for me if telstra turns to 700mhz network 🙂 i admit my phone was a bit sluggish on the 2.3.5 but updated to 2.3.6 and its flying even benchmarking above 3700 quadrant.

Mike Tran

 Even if you imported a LTE device from AT&T, It won’t work in AU, USA uses 700mhz LTE while we use 1800mhz LTE.

Ash

Is the note supposed to be on LTE as well?

Buzz Moody

No word on the Galaxy Note being LTE. It would be nice if it were.

Ash

I’ve been considering getting one, and I think there’s already an LTE variant for the US market, so let’s hope so. 🙂

Anonymous

Yes the AT&T Galaxy Note LTE comes out on February 13th. We already have two on order. It has the 4 capacative buttons down the bottom more like a typical Android phone, and is 1.5Ghz Dual Core but with a Qualcomm CPU not the Samsung one.

Andrew Palozzo

Noo.. don’t give me a minor upgrade (already an owner of the S2)!! Give me an S3 on LTE!!

Montalbert

Gotta agree with Andrew on this… Incremental upgrades are poor form.. Something I thought all manufacturers said they were steering away from???

Anonymous

I agree, Samsung are the kings of incremental upgrades…. apart from Apple.

Andrew Palozzo

Actually to be fair Nathsgames; Apple release only one update a year. The Android manufacturers are releasing a new flagship phone every 3-6 months.

Although I do like what they’re doing with their main line: S1, S2 & S3.. all annual release essentially.. and IMO are the cutting edge in HW too…

Anonymous

It is a lot to stay on top being an Android Geek I’ll give you that much 🙂