LenovoK800
Latest
Intel reveals Quad-Core, LTE-capable mobile chips are on the way
Intel's curious decision to shun the US and release Medfield-powered smartphones in India, China, Russia and the UK might be because of those countries' underdeveloped levels of LTE. Marketing chief Sumeet Syal told TechCrunch that its current-generation x86 system-on-chip won't support the standard, but a modem solution will arrive at the end of the year -- with production ramping up in 2013. He also let slip to the site that a replacement dual-core platform will arrive shortly, claiming they'll benefit from Intel's hyper threading know-how. Syal said that Santa Clara is "comfortable" with its progress just months after entering the smartphone space but declined to discuss numbers -- for which we'll have to wait for the Q3 earnings call in October to find out how well (or not) Intel's mobile ambitions are going.
Lenovo LePhone K800 launches, officially brings Medfield to China
At CES 2012, Lenovo was the first to announce a Medfield-powered smartphone: the K800. And while it was the first to be unveiled, it couldn't beat the Lava Xolo X900 to market. Lenovo's not too worried about that, however, as the K800 has arrived in China right on schedule, having originally aimed for a Q2 launch and later refining the timeframe to the end of May. The fruits of Intel's labor can be had for the grand 'ol retail price of RMB 3,299 ($524), which gets you a 1.6GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, Android 2.3, a 4.5-inch 720p display, an 8MP rear camera and 16GB of internal storage. We haven't heard any news of the phone reaching across the Pacific, but we're sure that won't stop the most insistent of you from grabbing a unit through alternative methods, right?
Lenovo to invest $800 million into new mobile device development facilities
The world's second (or third) biggest PC manufacturer has announced plans to invest $800 million in a new mobile product-centric facility. Lenovo wants to get closely involved with the lucrative world of smartphones and tablets, promising that several thousand employees at the new base in Wuhan will focus on new mobile devices for both China and overseas. Lenovo's pegged to launch the K800, one the first Intel-powered Android phones, at the end of the month, but this marks a concerted effort to advance both its tablet and phone collections -- and offer up more space for those other side projects.
Intel Medfield-packing Lenovo K800 to land next month, has an avatar in tow
Wondering when the Lenovo K800 will finally land? Or perhaps you're curious about how those Medfield processors will perform in real life? The answer to both those questions should be with us towards the end of next month -- according to Intel's Sean Maloney, who's hosting the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing right now. Announcing via microblogging site Sina Weibo, Maloney didn't go as far as fixing a date, but did go on to confirm that it will also be bringing the firm's new "Avatar Technology" with it (pictured after the break). What that is exactly, has yet to be revealed, but we're pretty sure / hopeful James Cameron's not involved.Update: Our sources indicated that the launch will be towards the end of May, but yeah, still exclusive to China.
Lenovo K800's initial benchmark scores look promising, but not ambitious
If Lenovo's sticking to its promise, it should only be another two months maximum before its Intel Medfield-powered K800 smartphone debuts in China. Until then, we won't know the full potential of the 1.6GHz Atom Z2460 powering Ice Cream Sandwich, but we do have the next best thing for now: what we've just obtained are some benchmark results from a K800 prototype with Android 2.3.7, and while the graphics performance wasn't top notch this time round, the general score performance came close to that of the Galaxy Note (powered by a 1.4GHz dual-core Exynos chipset). However, the K800 did beat pretty much everyone -- including the brand-spanking-new One X and One S from HTC -- in the SunSpider 0.91 Javascript test, where it only took 1,270ms to complete! What remains to be seen is whether Medfield will really deliver a better battery performance than its competitors; so until we find the answer (along with improved scores) on a final unit, you'll just have to make do with our list of scores after the break.
Lenovo K800 Intel Medfield smartphone hands-on (video)
Well it looks like we have a surprise guest at Showstoppers tonight. Lenovo just dropped by with its just-announced K800 -- the first Intel-powered smartphone to see the light of day. The beastly 4.5-inch 720p device sample that the company had on-hand is running a highly modified version of Android, and while the interface may not look familiar, the overall app experience shouldn't be much different from what you're used to. The official spec list includes a 1.6GHz Intel Medfield processor, Android 2.3, a TFT display and an 8 megapixel camera with a maximum sensitivity of ISO 3200. For now, the K800 is compatible with WCDMA HSPA+ and was running on AT&T's 3G network -- there's no word of LTE on this version, which seems logical considering that the 4G network is a bit hard to come by in Lenovo's native China, where the device is expected to launch first. Naturally, there's also 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0 and GPS connectivity. We'll be bringing you more on what's undoubtedly the hottest gadget of the evening in the days to come, but jump past the break for an early look at the world's first Medfield smartphone. Update: With no access to Android Market, our benchmarking abilities were somewhat limited. We did manage to run SunSpider on the K800 though, which yielded a score of 1,971 -- just a hair faster than the 1,985 that we saw on the Galaxy Nexus.
Intel's first Medfield smartphone is Lenovo's K800, coming first to China Unicom in Q2 with Android 4.0
Intel's been promising a smartphone of its own for about as long as men have been walking the ground of Earth, but it looks as if its May 2011 claims of "early next year" are finally getting close to being "accurate." Here at the company's CES 2012 keynote, the Medfield-based Lenovo K800 was revealed as the first Intel-powered smartphone (boasting Android 4.0, no less), with Lenovo's home turf being pegged as getting first dibs. There's a 4.5-inch 720p display and rear camera with dual-LED flash but outside of a tip that it'll be shipping to China Unicom in Q2 of this year, everything else surrounding it remains a mystery. First off, it's downright amazing to hear Intel finally give us a date to mark down, but it remains to be seen how many phone manufacturers will drop their existing adoration for Qualcomm and NVIDIA in order to given Intel's (historically power-sucking) mobile chips a go. Follow along at our Intel liveblog here!
