Seoul, KOREA ¶ May 09, 2012 -- With Apple seemingly running out of its ammunition, Samsung Electronics certainly looked like it has an ace up its sleeve when it released the Galaxy S3. Samsung has raised the bar again with the innovative Galaxy Note. It turned out the human-centric features Samsung emphasized at the press event was the wireless charging technology using magnetic resonance.

Although it is clear that Nokia and RIM are on the slippery downward slope, there is yet another contender LG Electronics, chasing the frontrunners at its every innovative attempt. Well, the first round of competition, if you will, didn’t go well with the LG Optimus Vu, overshadowed by the fascinating drawing and note features of Samsung’s Galaxy Note.

However, the wireless charging has been around in the market for years and yet Samsung has gone an extra length to found the Alliance for Wireless Power, or A4WP, to commercialize the magnetic resonance wireless charging technology. Actually, LG’s Optimus LTE 2 adopted a slightly different technology of magnetic induction with built-in wireless charging coils.

LG said magnetic induction wireless charging is more efficient and easily compatible than that of Samsung’s magnetic resonance, which has not been commercialized thus cannot be trusted in terms of its quality, while Samsung countered that once Galaxy S3 is out for test-run, the technology’s superiority would be undeniable. With the wireless charging segment expected to grow into over a US$100 million market by 2015, we will have to wait and see until the dust settles.

In the meantime, LG Electronics is gathering itself up at International CTIA Wireless 2012 with strategic smartphone lineups from May 8 to 10 in New Orleans, the U.S.

Some of the biggest attention grabbers are on display at the booth: the first Quad Core Optimus 4X HD with Envidia’s 1.5GHz Quad Core Processor Tegra 3 and 4.7-inch True HD IPS Display, Optimus Vu with “Quick Memo” feature and 5-inch high-resolution display, and glassless 3D Optimus 3D Max.

Also there is a plethora of LTE smartphones already on the North American market and are getting some good feedbacks: Spectrum, Lucid (service carrier Verizon), Nitro HD (AT&T), Viper 4G LTE (Sprint), and Connect 4G (Metro PCS).

Park Jong-Suk, the head of the MC Business Division of LG Electronics, said his company can showcase the differentiated technical prowess with LTE connectivity, HD display, and Quad Core.

Jeansun Kim (press@whowired.com)