Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra Is America’s First Unlocked All-Carrier 5G Phone
The Samsung Galaxy S20 lineup will be the first set of unlocked phones that work on the 5G networks of all major US carriers, according to carriers and other sources—which is a big deal.
Even if you don’t buy your phone unlocked, there will be only one hardware version of the S20+ and S20 Ultra sold across carriers, although your phone will come loaded with carrier firmware. That means if you choose to buy an unlocked S20+ or S20 Ultra, you can insert any SIM and get your carrier of choice’s fastest 5G speeds. And if you buy one from your carrier and decide later to unlock it and switch carriers, you’ll be able to use the phone on your new carrier.
Until now, 5G phones have been sold by carriers and haven’t included all of the 5G approaches used by even their own carriers, much less others. But the S20+ and S20 Ultra have all of the bands and approaches that all four ( soon to be three) US carriers intend to use this year, and Samsung confirmed that it can be switched between carriers.
That includes 5G bands n2, n5, n41, n66, n71, n260 and n261, with DSS, along with all of the previous 4G, 3G, and 2G systems used in the US at the moment, both CDMA and GSM. One phone to rule them all.
Looking forward, the S20+ and S20 Ultra will support improved performance through better carrier aggregation coming later this year, AT&T tells me, although the crystal ball is cloudy as to whether the phone will support networks’ transition to standalone mode starting later this year. I’ve also heard that the unlocked unit will support voice-over-LTE and Wi-Fi calling on all carriers. AT&T, especially, tends to be testy about allowing those features on unlocked phones, citing software compatibilities. But the carrier says you should be good to go with this one.
5G Still Won’t Cross Borders
There is only one model of the Galaxy S20+ and the Ultra for the US, but other global models have different 5G capabilities. All global Galaxy S20 models will work on pretty much all 4G networks. But when you get to 5G, things get testy. I’m about to go way into the TL;DR territory, so let me just say for you international arbitrageurs, don’t cross the streams between these regions-the US, Canada, China, Korea, and everywhere else.
All US carriers will be getting the SM-G988U. That model has a Snapdragon 865 processor and support for 5G bands n2, n5, n41, n66, n71, n260 and n261, with DSS, according to B&H. This model does not support bands n77 or n78, needed in a lot of countries outside the US. So importing it to other countries will cause it to lose 5G capability.
I’m still figuring out how the other models differ. The four other units I know of are W, for Canada; 0, for Hong Kong, China, and Japan; N, for Korea; and B, for other countries. There is also an S20 Ultra LTE version, with 5G disabled, which will be released in countries with no 5G networks. Some sites are also saying there is an “F” model, but as far as I can tell, that’s just the “B” model; Samsung has no support page for an “F” model.
This Georgian sales page says the B models have 5G bands n1, n3, n5, n7, n8, n28, n40, n77, and n78. It’s backed up by this Ukrainian sales page, so maybe that’s correct. Notice there’s no overlap there between those bands and the bands on the US model.
Models U, W, and 0 have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor. Models N and B have the Samsung Exynos 990. There’s a riot of different frequency bands that need to be supported right now, and I don’t think we’re going to see all of them in any model.
For instance, the US uses n260 and n261 as millimeter-wave 5G bands. Japan and Korea are launching millimeter wave too, but they’re on n257. When it comes to Korea, it will be n258. Here’s a confusing picture of the hot mess from a very nice NTT DoCoMo PDF. Eventually, this may all come together in one device, but for now, support will be split country by country.
The S20: Exception That Proves the Rule
While the unlocked S20+ and S20 Ultra will work on every US 5G carrier, the small S20 won’t. As a low-band-only phone, it won’t be able to connect to Verizon’s current 5G network. Verizon will release a model later this spring that will have all of the bands for all the carriers, but I’ve heard that model will not be sold unlocked because Verizon will be slightly subsidizing it.
Why two units? Millimeter-wave is expensive to include, Samsung said.
The small S20 will support 2G/3G/4G on all the US networks, and will support low-band and mid-band 5G on the AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile networks. So far, low-band 5G on AT&T and T-Mobile hasn’t been a major upgrade from 4G. The Sprint/T-Mobile merger may change the game by spreading mid-band 5G nationwide. By and large, though, I’d think of the initial small S20 as a 5G phone on Sprint/T-Mobile and a 4G phone on AT&T, for now at least.
Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.
