In 2012, smartphones will definitely not look like the smartphones from 2011.

If you look behind a bit and you appreciate the speed things evolved at you will realize that you can prepare yourself for some revolutionary changes.

In this article we are going to try to focus your attention on a few things that will make our phone smarter, more advanced, and more useful – and everything will happen by the end of 2012.

Android 4.0

Android 4.0 is only starting to find it’s place on the smartphones and tablets market. The operating system Google created did a pretty good job of synthesizing everything what Gingerbread and Honeycomb had to offer.

Unfortunately, it only came on the Galaxy Nexus smartphone from Samsung, and a few months after it’s release in October 2011 we are still having difficulties in finding devices with Android 4.0. The future seems bright for Gingerbread users as many of them will transition to Android Ice Cream Sandwich, while new Android 4.0 devices are announced weekly. Considering that Nokia is focusing on Windows Phone, Ice Cream Sandwich might be the mobile platform of the year.

Quad Core Fever

The quad core fever is getting bigger now as latest generation smartphones are struggling to compete with tablets, especially since we are talking about the same hardware platform on both type of devices – as it happens with Android. To fuel this race, chipset manufacturers are creating faster processors.

The logical transition is now being made to quad core processors Although this is obvious, the problem comes from the number of apps that know how to take advantage of this processing power. Transformer Prime, for example, had performance problems until the operating system was updated.

Then, there is the battery problem, as a quad core processor is more demanding. Even with these small details in sight, if we were to think about the number of devices already announced for 2012, most of them include quad core processors.

Ever since 2008, smartphone users had to store their credit card information on the servers of the apps store they purchased  apps from. However, this will change shortly.

Microsoft, Google and even Blackberry have started to sign partnerships with mobile operators so that all purchases to be paid through the monthly mobile bill. In some countries, Google Play users have the option of paying for their purchases on the mobile bill, and RIM has contracts with 40 mobile operators from different countries to do the same with Blackberry App World purchases.

Bigger and Better Screens

Well, they are a certainty on smartphones. When the iPhone was first released, a 3.5 inch size was pretty big, but now we see smartphones with screens of up to 5 inches. A few examples are Galaxy Note, LG Optimus 4X HD and HTC One X – smartphones with 4,7 inch displays.

The resolution was not neglected. 1280 x 720 pixels on a smartphone can display some spectacular images, both static and dynamic ( videos ).

Is Android Jelly Bean The Future Android ?

The next Android version will be Android 5.0, also known as Android Jelly Bean. Google got us used to huge time frames between major releases, but they might make an exception with Android 5.0. And this is mostly because Windows 8 wants to take a bite out of the tablets market.

If we were to believe all rumors, Android 5.0 might arrive on the market this summer. And from what it looks like, Asus will be the first to use it.

Advanced Photo / Video Cameras

Besides faster processors and bigger displays, players like Nokia or even Apple triggered a “fight” for the best camera in a smartphone.

What is interesting is that in what the number of mega pixels is concerned things have cool down. Now the race is for advanced technologies, like BSI, and advanced capture proceedings. Nokia 808 PureView is the best example of this ideology.  With a 41 MP sensor, the phone can take photos at impressive quality, but at the 8 MP resolution. HTC, for example, also made some progress in this area.

NFC is struggling to become maistream.

NFC has been in the news ever since a few years ago, but it has some huge adoption, or better said, usability problems. Basically, devices are starting to integrate a compatible sensor, but the ecosystem is lacking. Although the end purpose seems to be using the technology to make mobile payments, it’s nice to see that NFC is now being used to transfer data at bigger speeds.

LTE is also a technology that has been causing some waves. While more and more mobile operators are experimenting with 4G or LTE technology, it’s nice to see what we are also starting to see compatible smartphones on the market.

Dual core processors are standard - Although the transition from single core to dual core processors was not very fast.

Currently, we can only see single core processors on smartphones released back in 2012, as all smartphones released in 2012 now include dual core processors. Without worrying too much about the quad core platform, manufacturers are releasing a bunch of dual core smartphones this year, which makes us think that his trend will continue to be present on the market for another year, at least.

No more memory cards

Even if many users criticized Apple for refusing to integrate a microSD slot in the iPhone smartphone or iPad tablet, it seems that at that time Apple triggered a trend followed by many smartphones manufacturers right now. Although right now only Windows Phone smartphones come without a card slot, Android manufacturers seem to take the same path.

To conclude, all that remains right now is to study the market a bit and make up your mind about what to buy, as you have plenty to choose from in 2012 on the smartphones market.