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Intel plots a mobile coup with $1.5 billion investment in Chinese chipmakers
While Intel is prominent in the mobile world, it's often playing catch-up with the undisputed king of the market, ARM (and as a result, Qualcomm). But that doesn't mean it's not willing to spend money to reverse that trend. The company has announced that it's paid $1.5 billion for a 20 percent share in two of China's biggest mobile chipmakers, Spreadtrum Communications and RDA Microelectronics. The deal will see Spreadtrum jointly create and sell a range of Intel-based system-on-chips (SoCs), which Intel says will power devices from the middle of next year. It gives Intel the boost it needs to begin competing against its more established rivals, but also offers the chance of cracking the world's biggest smartphone market (where Qualcomm is currently facing an antitrust probe). While Spreadtrum is known for low-cost chips that power Mozilla's Firefox OS smartphones, there's every chance this deal could see Intel make more of a splash in the booming Android market.
Mozilla aiming for a $25 smartphone with new chip partner Spreadtrum
Spreadtrum certainly isn't a household name in the US, but Mozilla is less concerned with brand recognition than it is with delivering an ultra-cheap handset. The two companies have announced a new partnership that will see Spreadtrum building reference designs for Firefox OS phones with a target price of $25. (And no, we're not missing a zero there.) The heart of the effort is the SC6821, a Cortex A5-based chipset that supports WCDMA and EDGE networks, but not LTE. The platform includes WiFi, Bluetooth, cameras and FM radio, though touchscreen support appears to top out at 3.5-inch HVGA panels. The lack of 4G connectivity, older CPU design and low screen resolutions clearly mark this as a low-end initiative, but its one that will give it a major leg up in emerging markets like India where feature phones still rule supreme.
HTC outs Desire 700 and 501 handsets in Taiwan, sets sights on the mid-range market
As if that recently announced trio of Desire smartphones wasn't enough, HTC today introduced a couple more, this time in Taiwan. Meet the Desire 700 and Desire 501, both aimed at the mid-range market in said Asian territory. For its part, the 700 (pictured above) features a 5-inch, qHD display alongside BoomSound speakers, an as-of-yet undisclosed quad-core Snapdragon chip Spreadtrum's quad-core 1.2GHz Shark SoC, 1GB RAM, 8GB of internal storage and a 2,100mAh battery. The 501, on the other hand, packs those same traits but with a smaller 4.3-inch, WVGA screen and a dual-core 1.15GHz ST-Ericsson U8520 -- oh, and it comes in a few different colors. HTC is pricing its dual-SIM-packing Desire 700 at NTD 13,900 (about $470), while the Desire 501 will be available with a cheaper NTD 9,900 price tag. Update: Engadget Chinese had some hands-on time with the new Desires, so be sure to check that out right here!
MobileBench group aims to improve mobile benchmarking, recruits Samsung but lacks Qualcomm, NVIDIA
It's called MobileBench: an industry consortium planning to offer "more effective" performance assessments on mobile devices -- most likely centered on, but not limited to, Android. Unsurprisingly after recent developments, Samsung joins as a founding member, alongside Broadcom, Huawei, Oppo, and Spreadtrum. While that's who's in, who isn't? Well, both NVIDIA (responsible for the Tegra series of mobile chips) and the increasingly ubiquitous Qualcomm, which makes the Snapdragon mobile processor range. Between them, they power the likes of Microsoft's Surface series, Amazon's new Kindle Fire range, not to mention numerous flagship devices from LG, Samsung, Sony and Motorola. The group gathered for the first time yesterday in Shenzhen, China and outlined how it aims to offer more useful tools for mobile platform designers and "more reliable indices" for assessing user experience. MobileBench plans to establish impartial guidelines and a more sophisticated evaluation methodology for both its first benchmark tool, MobileBench and MobileBench-UX, for testing system-level applications. The benchmarking tool will assess hardware performance, including high-level processes like video and image viewing, camera use and other real-life use cases, with one of the primary aims being result consistency and less deviation between repeated tests. Another app is planned for consumer use in the future, likely similar to the benchmarking apps Engadget uses in its reviews. The bigger question is how much the consortium can achieve without wider adoption inside the industry -- it's apparently "actively seeking" more members.
BLU Products launches trio of Dash smartphones starting at $49
Too thrifty to buy a $199 Nexus 4, or even a $99 Lumia 520? BLU Products has you covered with three new smartphones in its Dash range. The line starts with the Dash Jr., a 3.5-inch dual-SIM phone that costs just $49 unlocked -- cheap enough that we (almost) don't mind its single-core Spreadtrum processor, 2G-only data, 2-megapixel camera and Android 2.3. If you can afford to splurge, the Dash Music 4.0 ($99) and Dash 5.0 ($129) jump to their namesake larger screens, 3G data, dual-core MediaTek chips, higher-resolution cameras and Android 4.2. BLU expects all three Dash handsets to ship before the end of September, so penny pinchers won't have long to wait. Check out press shots of the Dash Music 4.0 and Dash 5.0 after the break.
Spreadtrum technology enables three SIM cards in one phone, jetsetters rejoice
You know that dual-SIM handset you picked up last year to make those frequent jaunts between Belgium and Luxembourg so much easier? Might as well throw The Netherlands in there to complete the Benelux triangle, as Spreadtrum has just announced a new single chip that enables support for three SIM cards within a single handset. The SC6600L7 solution allows for a trio of SIMs to run simultaneously, and as you'd expect, it's aimed at the multiple-operator-market and at double agents who need on-the-fly access to a range of phone numbers. According to the company, trials have just wrapped up in a variety of nations, but there's no published word on when any phone makers will begin integrating this into their lineup. Tomorrow would be nice, eh?