Last year LG debuted a dual core smarphone at Mobile World Congress, and this year the company is upping the ante to a new Android smartphone powered by a 1.5GHz Tegra 3 quad core processor. Yes, this is still a smartphone, just with a processor that has usually been reserved for tablets like the Transformer Prime.

LG plans to reveal the new Android smartphone at this year’s Mobile World Congress 2012 in Spain. The new phone is called the LG Optimus 4X HD and is a 8.9mm thick slab with "prism like" contours and edges. On the outside of the phone, it features a 4.7" True HD IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 720, a LED flash, and two cameras. On the front is a 1.3 megapixel camera and the rear camera is 8 megapixel BSI (Backside Illumination Sensor) camera.

The inside of the phone houses some fairly impressive hardware as well. The phone is powered by a Tegra 3 quad core processor running at 1.5 GHz, 1 GB of LP DDR2 RAM, and 16 GB of internal storage. Backing all this hardware is a 2,150 mAh battery. LG Mobile CEO Dr. Jong-seok Park stated that:

"Speed in itself isn’t what makes LG Optimus 4X HD unique. It’s the benefit we’re bringing to customers with the HD multimedia experience in a mobile form factor."

The LG 4X HD will be running the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system and will be available in Europe during the second quarter of this year. The company will further be showing the device off at Mobile World Congress 2012 at the LG stand in Hall 8 from February 27 to March 1.

Do you think the world needs a quad core smartphone yet?