Top 5 upcoming smartphones to look forward to

Getting bigger by the year

This is what the phone/tablet should look like:

• 5.5-inch Super AMOELD touchscreen with a 1680 × 1050
• 4G LTE, EDGE, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, NFC
• GPS possibly with GLNONASS and a-GPS support
• Bluetooth possible v4.0 with USB and hopefully USB-on-the-go
• 8/12 megapixel AF/Touchfocus camera with full HD video recording and playback
• A front facing camera for video calls and chats
• Possibly a 64GB edition, along with 16GB and 32GB versions all with expandable support
• MHL for AV out

Motorola Atrix HD
The Atrix HD is a souped up version of the Droid Razr XT910 that should launch internationally very soon. Motorola have swapped the Super AMOLED screen for a larger TFT LCD display with an HD resolution. It will be powered by the more efficient Qualcomm MSM8960 SoC which includes a dual-core Krait CPU and an Adreno 225 GPU. The phone will also be just 8.4mm thin and will feature the DuPont Kevlar on the back panel. The phone has been announced for US carriers and should be hitting other countries as well in the coming months.

Looks promising

Here are some of the highlights of the Atrix HD:

• 4.5-inch capacity touchscreen display with a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution
• 3G, EDGE/GPRS and Wi-Fi capabilities for net access
• GPS with A-GPS support for Google Maps
• Bluetooth with A2DP and USB 2.0 (Micro)
• 8MP camera with LED flash and secondary camera up front
• FM radio
• 8GB internal memory, expandable via mciroSD card slot up to 32GB

Asus Padfone
This is probably going to be one of the most expensive phones of 2012 and perhaps the most interesting as well. With the Padfone, you’re not only getting a phone but also a tablet as the phone will ship with a dock that turns into a tablet once you insert your phone in it. This is very smart actually as it gives you two devices in one. However, the launch of the Padfone has been delayed due to the shortage of Qualcomm S4 chips so once that’s sorted out, we could get a rough launch date for the Padfone. This extra time also gives Asus the opportunity to test out Jelly Bean on the hybrid phone, so it may just launch with the latest version of Android, which is always nice.

A different concept

Here are some of the highlights of the Padfone:

• 4.3-inch capacity touchscreen display with a 540 x 960 pixel resolution
• 3G, EDGE/GPRS and Wi-Fi capabilities for net access
• GPS with A-GPS support for Google Maps
• Bluetooth with A2DP and USB 2.0 (Micro)
• 8MP camera with LED flash and secondary camera up front
• FM radio
• 16/3264 GB internal memory, expandable via microSD card slot up to 32G