BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Five trends in smartphone hardware design have been dominant at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, analysts say.
Advances in processors, bigger display screens, near-field communications, a higher-speed wireless standard and growing numbers of inexpensive smartphones have been the buzz subjects as smartphone makers unveiled their latest offerings, PCWorld.com reported Tuesday.
A quad-core processor has become a must-have in makers' high-end phone, with LG, HTC and ZTE all introducing devices based on the Nvidia Tegra 3 multi-core processor.
As processors get faster, screens are getting bigger with higher resolutions. LG and HTC have both shown phones with 4.7-inch screens with a resolution of 1280 by 720 pixels. LG is even showing the Optimus Vu, which has a 5-inch screen.
With mobile payments using NFC (Near-Field Communications) finding consumer acceptance, smartphone buyers will find an increasing number of NFC compatible phones.
And as carriers roll out the faster LTE (Long Term Evolution) wireless standard, phone makers are responding with and more handsets, with LG saying its goal is to have the widest variety of LTE smartphones in the industry in 2012.
The fifth smartphone trend acknowledges that not every consumer wants or can afford all those high-end features, with phone makers being careful to include a least one budget-priced phone in their offerings.
Even Intel wants a piece of the inexpensive phone pie, announcing its 1GHz Z2000 processor, which should start showing up in smartphones in 2013 expected to sell for less than $150 without subsidies and long term contracts, PC World reported.
