The LG LS970, also rumored to be called the LG Eclipse 4G LTE (again an ugly long name), is said to come with a quad core 1.5 Ghz S4 Pro processor, that will have the new GPU architecture and GPU chip called Adreno 320. The phone is also rumored to have 2 GB of RAM and a 13 MP camera. All of that makes it sound like a powerhouse smartphone. But we don’t know when it will be available. It could come out at the end of the year, or maybe even early next year.
The LTE chip is not integrated, because Qualcomm didn’t have time to do it in time for the launch of this chip, which again makes me think that Qualcomm got a little scared about Nvidia’s quad core marketing, and thought that’s what users want, so now they are scrambling to release a quad core version as soon as possible, too.
Personally, I would’ve preferred they released a dual core 2.5 Ghz chip with Adreno 320. I think such a chip would be significantly better overall, as half of the cores will go unused in most situations anyway. But if Qualcomm is not going that route this year, then I would rather go with the Samsung Exynos 5, which will have a dual core 2 Ghz Cortex A15 CPU and a new GPU architecture and new GPU chip called Mali T-604.
As for LG, I’ve noticed since the Optimus 2X that they can put very good components in their phones. That’s great. They have half of the equation solved. The other half is following through with Android upgrades, and making sure the builds are very polished and without bugs. If they can do that, plus make more inspired designs and use better build materials, then the Android ecosystem might give them a second shot, until then they’ll just get excited about the specs until the phone is launched, and then go away unimpressed when the reviews land online.