Are quad-core smartphones a big deal?

Mobile World Congress is just around the corner and it’s looking like the big story of the show will be quad-core smartphones. While the specs-hungry geek in me can’t wait to play with these devices, will a quad-core smartphone make a material difference in how good these handsets become? 

NIVIDA has sent out invites for press events at the trade show and it will likely have a handful of devices that utilize its Tegra 3 chipset. None of this is confirmed but we expect to see Tegra 3-powered smartphones from LG, Fujitsu, Asus and even HTC. 

The HTC device is interesting because a partnership with NVIDIA would be a major strategic shift for a company that has been facing struggling sales. It would also be kind of a slap in the face to Qualcomm, which has an investment in HTC and had previously been the sole provider of HTC processors. 

With that subplot aside, what will a quad-core processor mean for your phone? The easiest answer is: more power. Take a look at some of NVIDIA’s videos from CES to see what the Tegra 3 chip means in terms of graphics and pure processing power. The company also says that there’s a “fifth core” in it which will help battery life and make things easier for developers. 

When we reviewed the Asus Transformer Prime, it was clear that the quad-core chipset had an impact. “The power contained inside NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 is immediately obvious when you first boot the device up. Flicking through homescreens is noticeably smoother and everything feels snappy – almost iPad 2-liked in some instances.” 

It’s not just NVIDIA though, as Qualcomm will soon have its quad-core S4 chipset ready for smartphones and tablets, and Texas Instruments won’t be too far behind. I’m also a big believer in trying to future-proof your smartphone purchases as much as possible, so having that additional horsepower may be really nice by the time your new cell phone contract is about to end. 

Still, I fear that we may be seeing a “speeds and feeds” race which has companies marketing bleeding-edge technology that promises a better experience down the road but not actually delivering one right now. The big story last year was about dual-core processors in smartphones and tablets but the first crop of devices didn’t significantly offer anything amazing beyond high scores on bench marking apps. 

Perhaps that was an issue of Android and not the processor, as even the quad-core packing Prime had some issues with lag. For the first half of 2011, it seemed like having a dual-core processor on an Android phone was just another check on a marketing list instead of a thoughtful inclusion. 

Windows Phone devices still only have single-core processing but the optimization is so well done that pretty much every one of Microsoft’s modern smartphones feels extremely snappy and fluid. The iPhone 4S is also a dual-core device and you can definitely feel the speed improvement compared to last year’s model. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love to see companies pushing the boundaries of technology by packing as many specs as possible into ever-smaller handsets. I just hope that smartphone makers realize that great specs alone won’t lead to great devices.