It seems that 2011 will be the year where dual core processors become the norm for high end smartphones. The first such device, the LG Optimus 2X, was announced at January’s Consumer Electronics Show and received a great deal of interest from the public and professional community alike. Interest in LG’s latest flagship device has subsequently waned in light of some of the other dual core handsets announced by competing manufacturers, with the most noticeable of these being the Samsung Galaxy S II and the Motorola Atrix.

Dual core processing is set to make smartphones twice as powerful as the best that 2010 had to offer. Last year’s Snapdragon craze is now being replaced with the Tegra 2 and dual core ARM Cortex CPUs, and the number of dual core smartphones being announced is increasing on a daily basis. With the majority of these devices running on Google Android it looks as though this is one area at least where Apple are starting to play catch up, as their dual core iPhone 5 is not set for release until June or July.

The Galaxy S II and the Motorola Atrix are the two dual core devices that are attracting the most attention right now and, while both handsets run on Google Android, they both come with a set of features that single them out from the crowd. The Galaxy S II will update Samsung’s immensely popular Galaxy S, which was one of the biggest selling phones of 2010 and still remains a top seller several months after its release.

The Galaxy S was praised for its high quality Super AMOLED screen and this is set to be taken a step further by Samsung with the introduction of the even higher quality Super AMOLED Plus on the S II. The screen size has been increased as well, from 4″ to 4.3″, making it even more ideal for video and web content. Samsung have managed to compensate for this size increase by making their latest handset exceptionally slim, almost a millimetre thinner than the iPhone 4 – currently the “World’s Thinnest Smartphone”, as Apple like to keep reminding us.

The Motorola Atrix on the other hand, looks set to propel Motorola back to the forefront of the smartphone industry – a position that they have not held since the iconic RAZR phones of a few years back. This was a time when Motorola were also at the cutting edge of making phones ridiculously thin and, although the Atrix is not as slim as the iPhone 4 or the Galaxy S II, it is quite substantially slimmer than the slimmest of the RAZR handsets. This is quite an achievement considering all of the hardware power that has been crammed into this device.

While the slimmer Galaxy S II comes with a comparable amount of processing power, the Atrix is currently unique in its computing prowess due to the many peripheral devices that are available for it. For example, the Atrix comes with its own laptop dock into which it can be inserted, effectively turning the smartphone into a mini computer. This comes with its own unique operating system, WebTop, which includes a desktop-like task manager and the ability to run a fully tabbed version of Mozilla Firefox.

When it comes to smartphone use though, the Galaxy S II has the upper hand in terms of software by shipping with Android Gingerbread, while the Atrix will debut in the shops with Froyo. A future OS update should also provide the Atrix with many of the Galaxy S II’s features that will be lacking upon its release, such as full 1080p HD video recording. While the Galaxy S II has the upper hand in this respect, both handsets come with DLNA Wi-Fi and TV-Out ports, allowing you to enjoy high quality videos through a home TV.

In other areas of phone use such as web browsing and social networking the two handsets should offer a similar experience, with both handsets come with superb social network integration. In the United States at least, the Atrix will have the upper hand in the connectivity department with support for 4G although this will be dependent on network availability and, in terms of the more ubiquitous 3G, the Galaxy S II offers far speedier data connections.

The Motorola Atrix and Galaxy S II are certainly the two handsets that many people are keeping a close eye on at the moment. The Galaxy S II offers a larger screen and, for the time being at least, high quality video recording. Although the Atrix has a smaller display it comes with a larger screen resolution and is sure to attract a lot of attention due to its various docking devices. The Galaxy S II is likely to attract a lot of support simply due to the popularity of its predecessor, and in this regards the Atrix will not have things quite as easy. One thing is for sure though, these two handsets are sure to offer a serious threat to Apple’s upcoming iPhone iteration.