Just when we started getting used to dual-core smartphones, here comes a quad-core smartphone, the HTC Edge. Whether it’s the first-quad core handset in the world is still up for debate, but if the rumors are true, it’ll be the most advanced.

Looking a lot like that HTC Rezound we were admiring last week, its inner parts list has a similar spec sheet, with a gig of RAM, 8-megapixel camera with the F/2.2 lens, and it will even have the Beats audio enhancement package.

But that’s where the similarity ends. The Edge has a relatively gigantic 4.7-inch screen (compared with the Rezound’s 4.3 inch screen), and then there’s that Nvidia processor with its quartet of cores, each zinging along at 1.5GHz. All this updated tech will reportedly be shoehorned into a package that’s just 10mm thin.

By the way, in an Nvidia demo last spring, the company showed its Tegra 3 processor running twice as fast as its predecessor, the Tegra 2, and also running faster than an Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 chip. So we’re talking about laptop speed in a smartphone. Here’s a video of that demo, which also suggests the Tegra 3 sips less battery power than the Tegra 2:

One disappointing spec in this HTC Edge phone is a lack of the faster LTE capability, but it’s still no slouch with 21 megabit-per-second HSDPA connectivity on board.

Our friends at Pocketnow say they expect this beast of a smartphone to go on sale late in the first quarter of next year (or early in the second quarter), hopefully packing that shiny new Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) operating system.

Our take: The idea of a quad-core smartphone that’s as fast as a laptop in the palm of your hand is quite impressive. However, are people concerned about how smartphones are too slow? We’re not hearing that complaint nearly as much as worries about the nagging problem of too-short battery life.

And with its screen that’s significantly larger than most, along with two extra cores, wouldn’t the laws of physics require more battery power to run all this? Although the Tegra 3 chip is said to use less power than the Tegra 2, that larger screen will probably run the battery down faster, and the rumor didn’t include any info about improved battery life.