Malaysia’s Nokia Lumia 920 and 820: Truly Global Phones

Here’s a little bit of news that should delight Lumia 920 owners craving for faster Internet speeds: the Lumia 920 released for the Malaysian market not only supports quad-band GSM (2G) and pentaband WCDMA (3G), but also has support for nine 4G LTE frequencies, including the 2600MHz spectrum that will be used in Malaysia. In comparison, the US variant only supports three LTE bands, and five for the UK version.

This comes about after My Nokia Blog revealed that India’s variant of the Lumia 920 also supports the same amount of LTE bands as ours. More pertinently, Nokia Malaysia’s webpage for the Lumia 820 also shows that this smartphone also supports the same nine LTE bands, which makes them two of only three smartphones (the other being the ASUS Padfone 2) in Malaysia that are LTE-ready. The numerous supported frequencies also mean that they can be used basically on any network in every country in the world.

In comparison, Apple’s iPhone 5 does have an LTE radio installed, but it does not support our 2600MHz spectrum, which looks to be ready sometime next year. Samsung’s Galaxy SIII and Galaxy Note II for the Malaysian market, on the other hand, do not have LTE radios at all – in contrast to Singapore’s LTE-friendly versions. Speaking of which, Singapore’s LTE spectrum is the same as ours, meaning that Malaysian Lumia 920/820 owners can theoretically use their locally-purchased Lumia in Singapore on their LTE networks. Theoretically, because the LTE radios on the Lumia 920 and 820 are currently disabled – probably until the LTE infrastructure in Malaysia is in place. Once that is ready, we may well see a patch for the Lumia phones that will enable the LTE radio.

This piece of information was earlier revealed by our friends at SoyaCincau shortly after the local launch for the Lumia 920 and 820. Almost one week after these phones are available, we are still very surprised that Nokia Malaysia have not come out and market their new Lumia phones as being LTE-ready for Malaysia, especially when there is growing interest in LTE as the local infrastructure nears completion.