The Samsung Galaxy S8 may not be making its official debut until March 29, but the FCC got to look one over early, and today it revealed some interesting info about the device.
A new Samsung product with the model number SM-950U has appeared in the FCC, and it’s thought that this is the unlocked Galaxy S8 since it follows Samsung’s Galaxy S model number system (for example, the unlocked Galaxy S7 is SM-G930U). While the FCC entry doesn’t contain any photos of the device, it does spill some details on its wireless capabilities.
According to the FCC, the SM-G950U and SM-G955U (likely the Galaxy S8+) include support for LTE bands 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 17, 25, 26, 30, 41, and 66. That looks like it ought to cover all four major US carriers, including the newer LTE bands that some carriers are supporting, like T-Mobile with LTE band 66.
The FCC entry also mentions support for Bluetooth, ANT+, NFC, and MST, meaning features like Samsung Pay will likely be included, too.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 will be a flagship smartphone, so it’s good to see that the unlocked model will likely offer support for a wide variety of LTE bands. Here’s to hoping that it’ll be available at the same time as the carrier-specific models, that way folks that prefer to live the unlocked life can just pick that version up and swap carriers at will.
