Five mobile predictions for 2012

Gazing into the tech crystal ball takes some educated guesswork. Of course, some predictions are easier to make

while others require leaps of faith. These innovations usually come expected or have been in secret development

for ages-- resulting in disruptions to how we view and use our tech. Sometimes though, the innovations don't

really pan out, and the tech ends up with us shrugging our shoulders and moving on. But here are five things we

are pretty sure will happen, or we will create another pretty Post-it mural to appease the tech gods.

Quad-core processors

With dual-core smartphones being readily available, manufacturers are likely

to start looking for the next big thing to differentiate their devices. Nvidia

has already launched its quad-core Tegra 3 chip (and it's available on the

Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime), so expect other chip manufacturers like

Qualcomm to follow suit with its quad-core mobile processors.

There are already rumors of Android smartphones that will sport these type

of processors, and these phones may be unveiled at next week's Consumer

Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas or the upcoming Mobile World

Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.

Larger screens

The trend seems to be smartphones with giant screens these days--no surprises here--so expect to see more

handsets with screen sizes matching the Samsung Galaxy Not e. How this will impact battery life remains to be

seen, especially if the smartphone comes equipped with a quad-core processor, too.

LTE smartphones

If telcos manage to launch LTE services in their respective countries in Asia, then it's likely you'll be carrying around

an LTE device sometime this year. Don't put your hopes up though, as LTE monthly plans are likely not to be as

cheap as 3G for now.

Ice Cream Sandwich handsets

Expect to see more Android 4.0 smartphones (and tablets) this year as manufacturers

switch to using the new OS on their products. If you own a fairly new device running on

Gingerbread, chances are your manufacturer will release an update.

Windows Phone 8?

There's no word on Microsoft's next update to its Windows Phone 7 platform at the moment (unless you consider

this leaked roadmap to be true), but we expect an announcement sometime in March during MWC 2012. It's

possible that Windows Phone 8 will feature close integration with Microsoft's upcoming desktop OS Windows 8,

though we'll have to wait and see. Nokia's partnership should hopefully increase the Windows Phone market

share, though we'll have to wait for the numbers to be released to be sure.

Rudz