HTC Edge Leaks Continue: NFC & iPhone-Rivaling HD Display

Tidbits on the HTC Edge, the rumored quadcore smartphone that could potentially catapult HTC back to the top-spot in Android devices, continue to emerge after yesterday's leak. In addition to the NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor – running at 1.5GHz, supposedly, and paired with 1GB of RAM – the Edge will supposedly include NFC, according to BGR. That's to go along with the 4.7-inch 720p HD S-LCD 2 display with optical lamination.

Optical lamination, for those who have allowed themselves to fall behind in their mobile display technology reading, involves bonding the LCD panel itself to the cover glass. Seen on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, the end result is a display that appears to be almost floating just under the surface of the phone, with no air-gap and no chance of dust making its way, frustratingly, in-between the two layers.

The overall phone is a mere 8.8mm thick, according to these new sources – an improvement on the roughly 10mm mentioned yesterday – but one of the ways HTC has achieved that is by using a smaller micro-SIM card and deleting the microSD card slot. Instead, you'll apparently have to make do with 32GB of onboard storage. That could quickly get filled if you get snap-happy with the 8-megapixel camera, with a back-illuminated sensor for improved low-light performance and 28-millimeter f/2.2 lens, unsurprisingly capable of 1080p Full HD video recording.

Still, there's apparently been enough space for a 1,800 mAh battery – a good idea given the processor – and the other specs we first heard yesterday: 720p front-facing camera, Beats Audio and Bluetooth 4.0. 21Mbps HSDPA and HTC Sense 4.0 on top of an unspecified version of Android wrap things up, with a 2012 launch looking likely.