Samsung's Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ and the first smartphones to receive "4G Blue Tick Certification" from Telstra, denoting enhanced cellular performance in remote and rural areas on both 3G and 4G connections.
Up until now, Telstra’s Blue Tick only tested for calls over 3G. Given the transition to 4G calling technology such as VoLTE, Telstra has now extended Blue Tick testing to its 4G network. The Blue Tick certification only applies to voice coverage, rather than data speeds.
WhistleOut recently got a sneak peek at the secret facility that Telstra uses for testing upcoming devices, including for Blue Tick certification. While the above might look like some sort of spikey room of death, it's actually the anechoic chamber - a room that will completely absorb reflections of sound and electromagnetic waves - that Telstra uses to test the signal strength of a device when giving out Blue Ticks. Since there's no signal bouncing around, technicians are able to get a more accurate read of how an antenna is performing.
The tester inside the chamber will hold the phone in five different grips to gauge the receive and transmit strength of its antennas. Based on its internal methodology, Telstra is ostensibly looking for devices that offer a couple of extra dBm of signal strength over its pass / fail threshold. Telstra says that that even an extra 3 dBm of signal strength can result is as much as 8km of additional coverage when you're on the borderline of connectivity.
Fun fact: since the size and shape of your hand will affect your phone's signal strength differently to someone else's, every Blue Tick test is done by the same Telstra technician.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ go on sale from this Friday. If you're on the fence, check out our review here. If you're after an S8 or S8+ on Telstra's network, these are your options:
Alex Choros
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