Android :: Point Of Synchronization - Bluetooth Chat Sample?

What is the point of the synchronization here? Why not just use: mConnectedThread.write(out); ?
The code snippet is from the BluetoothChat sample for Android (found here)
http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/BluetoothChat/index.html

/**
* Write to the ConnectedThread in an unsynchronized manner
* @param out The bytes to write
* @see ConnectedThread#write(byte[])
*/ public void write(byte[] out) {
// Create temporary object ConnectedThread r;
// Synchronize a copy of the ConnectedThread synchronized (this) {
if (mState != STATE_CONNECTED) return; r = mConnectedThread;
} // Perform the write unsynchronized r.write(out);
}