In the tablet world, the race to be become the quad-core king has begun.

 

With Asus’ debut of its new Tegra 3 boasting Transformer Prime 10.1” tablet, it was only a matter of time before other manufacturers started pitching their offerings. And if rumours are to be believed, HTC is the next to throw its hat into the quad-core ring.

 

According to pocketnow.com, HTC’s chief executive officer Peter Chou detailed the impending quad-core HTC Quattro tablet, which will boast Nividia’s Tegra 3 processor along with 1 GB of RAM. The 10.1” device will apparently further run off Android, although it has not been clarified whether this would be Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich, and have a screen resolution of 1280 x 768.

 

The tablet is expected to have 16 GB of internal memory, and be expandable via microSD card. Like the company’s 7” Flyer, the Quattro may well feature pen input courtesy of HTC’s Scribe functionality. Hopefully though, this will be an enhanced version than that found on the Flyer.

 

Pocketnow elaborated that audio will apparently be handled by the impressive Beats Audio technology (now owned by HTC), while speculating that the tablet’s cameras may be on the low-end, with only a two megapixel rear shooter and a 1.3 megapixel webcam on the front.

 

As with all new tablet rumours though, we are inclined to take this with a pinch of salt. However, what is a lot less doubtful is that we can likely expect to see devices sporting Tegra 3 in the new year.

 

While 2011 may well have been the year of the tablet, with Windows finally set to come to the tablet party, an iPad 3 potentially being released and quad-core likely becoming more prevalent, 2012 will probably also be yet another year of the tablet PC.  

 

In recent news, HTC announced the availability of its new EVO 3D smartphone in South Africa, and detailed which of its devices will receive Android Ice Cream Sandwich updates in the year ahead.