As the title says. Currently a Galaxy Note owner and, by all accounts, the Note 2 (due imminently) will feature a quad core processor together with other upgrades.

But if I gave the Note 2 a miss (since I've only bought the original a few months ago), what will 2013 updates hold for the Galaxy range? Will it be 5 or 6 cores or something? How much can a handset take?

4G will be the next big thing and will render today "big price ticket phones " obsolete overnight !

Agreed

Nonsense.

4G is improvement over 3G, sure, but to say that it will immediately make all other phones obsolete is crazy.

Flexible screens could be a big step forward. This was rumoured for the note 2 however I doubt this and think we could see some next year, instead.

Depends how quickly the networks roll out 4g to the whole of the UK. I can see it taking years.

Why it's just a case of a software rollout and backhaul upgrades in some circumstances.

They already have the structures and the connectivity and the backhaul deals have in some cases been agreed. I think it will be much quicker than you think.

Even desktop PCs are hardly using 4 cores. So i will guarentee you your mobile wont be either. Your 4 core mobile is even being fully utilised yet, so adding mroe cores is pointless, apart from running multiple apps at once.

For me they have to do something about the shocking battery life on smartphones.

What is the point have a piece of amazing kit that lasts half a day with some usage?

4G isn't even approved by the regulator for UK yet (we are way behind many other countries), then they will have to allocate frequencies to operators, then they can start deployment. We may have a few city centre 4G hot spots in 12 months time, but I doubt it will be much more.

It is quite likely we will see 4G phones before we have coverage as they will be produced for use in other countries. This happened with 3G in the countries late to introduce the technology. In Turkey 3G phones were widely owned before there was any 3G networks.

They might not be using all 4 cores, and but the benefit comes when they are ticking over on 1 core as that uses a lot less battery.

Also I don't think people will notice much difference with 4G unless they are downloading large files or streaming HD movies.

Also I recon they should sort out the 3G/HSDPA/HSDPA+ first as you never even get what they are capable of at the moment.

LOL are you a betting man ? I think that as soon as the first phone & serviced are on the market the price ( on contract or outright purchase ) will fall like stone . I have seen it happen with TV's , PC's , cameras & cars

4G means that slow website that takes 3 minutes to load will take 180 seconds to load.

A wonderful must have advance.

Except many consumers don't give a toss. 3G and 4G will co-exist for quite some time before 4G becomes standard.

Many people are on 18 or 24 month contracts. They will wait for their contracts to expire before writing off their 3G phones and rushing out to buy 4G ones.

Others keep the same PAYG handsets for years.

4G is the next future standard, I have little doubt of that, but the notion that it's arrival will immediately render all other handsets obsolete is ridiculous.

Obsolete is a much overused term. I read many posts complaining that if their phone isn't the latest model, or isn't running the latest version of Android it is obsolete.

In my mind a phone is obsolete when it can no long be used for the things you need to do.

More efficient, faster cores that use less power and emit less heat

What next? It will be either something exciting like flexible screens, or something mundane like a battery that can last a couple of days.

Although the biggest changes in smartphones, will probably be the software. Watched a demo of google glasses the other day, very impressive.

64bit processors will be the next big thing with the ARM v8 chips.

We've just got 3G in our area a few months back, lots of places still don't have 3G coverage, so I can see 4G taking equally as long.

To your area maybe its new, but i've had an excellent 3G signal for at 2 years now.

This won't be the case, O2 and Vodafone promise to deliver 4G to 98% of the population by 2015 with every mast getting a 4G upgrade.

Which is when it isn't the latest model or isn't running the latest version of Android...

In Tegra 3 the Cores are quintupled with the fifth being ultra low power.