LG has announced, and will be showing off at MWC (starting tomorrow), the Optimus 4X HD. This is LG’s first quad-core phone and uses the Nvidia Tegra 3 platform. It’s likely that we’ll see a number of Tegra 3 smartphones announced and shown at MWC this year. Tegra 3 has actually been on the market for a few months in the form of the Asus Transformer Prime, but we’ve yet to see it available in phone-form.

I’m happy to report that the Optimus 4X HD comes pre-installed with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich which will help really make use of the 1.5GHz quad-core CPU which is equipped with 1GB of RAM. There is 16GB of in-built memory, and the screen is a monster 4.7″ 1280x720p IPS display which, if anything like the LG Spectrum’s screen, is sure to please in terms of colors and sharpness. There’s an 8MP camera on the back and a 1.3MP camera in the front. Additionally, the phone is equipped with 4G LTE; LG will have to be really careful with this phone to ensure that it has reasonable battery life. The battery capacity is 2150mAh.

Chippy is on the show floor at MWC starting tomorrow, stay tuned for more!

LG has announced the Optimus Vu a week ahead of the upcoming Mobile World Congress convention where they plan to show off the new phone. The Optimus Vu is a massive 5″ phone with a 4:3 aspect ratio — significantly more square than your typical 16:9 Android smartphone. This leaves it with a curious 1024×768 resolution. Exactly how Android applications will take to this non-standard resolution is unclear — though I was impressed with how well Android managed to scale applications to the likes of the HTC Status which has an odd 2.6″ screen with a 480×320 resolution. While I’ve argued that more square screens make for a better one-handed smartphone experience with Android, at 5″ the 4:3 ratio is not likely to help this very much.

LG says that the phone will launch running Android 2.3, but Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is already in the works. LG is billing the Optimus Vu as a device that could be useful for note-taking, but make no mention of an active digitizer screen such as those found on the HTC Flyer and Samsung Galaxy Note. Presumably then, the Optimus Vu will rely on a standard captive touchscreen which won’t be as accurate or smooth for digital note-taking or support palm-rejection. The company will be offering a “Rubberdium” stylus (presumably capacitive) with the Optimus Vu, though it isn’t clear whether or not this will be an included accessory or a separate purchase. LTE is included for 4G data access.

LG makes no mention of whether or not the Optimus Vu will be launched outside of Korea, where it is set to become available in March.

Specs we know so far:

• Chipset: 1.5GHz Dual-Core Processor
• Display: 5-inch (1024×768) IPS Display
• Memory: 32GB eMMC and 1GB DDR2
• Camera: 8MP with AF LED Flash (rear) and 1.3MP (front)
• OS: Android 2.3 Gingerbread (upgradable to Android 4.0 ICS)
• Battery: 2,080mAh
• Dimension (L x W x D): 139.6 x 90.4 x 8.5mm
• Connectors: HDMI (unspecified socket type)

As mentioned, LG will have the Optimus Vu on display at MWC next week, so stay tuned for more specs and info coming soon.

More photos below: