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ZTE Grand X IN: Intel-powered ICS smartphone to launch next month
It was all getting a little quiet on Intel-powered smartphone front, but now ZTE's decided to refresh its not-so-elderly Grand X with a Medfield processor and Ice Cream Sandwich. Part of ZTE's showing here at IFA, it's the company's first Android 4.0 device, running on an Atom Z2460. Expect HSPA+ speeds up to 21Mbps, alongside some familiar Grand X specs. This includes a 4.3-inch 960 x 540 screen, while this model now packs an 8-megapixel camera and 1,650mAh battery. ZTE's latest redesign will arrive in Europe at the start of next month -- and we'll be tracking down a model in Berlin later today. Follow all of our IFA 2012 coverage by heading to our event hub!
Orange San Diego Medfield phone: a closer look at Computex 2012 (update: video)
Well what do we have here? Yes, it's the Orange San Diego we first saw at Mobile World Congress and it's going on sale in the UK today for £200. This isn't just yet another Android smartphone, but one of the first Medfield-based handsets on the market. We caught this pre-production unit chilling out at the Intel booth here at Computex 2012 and decided to go up close and personal. First impressions? It's thin, light and feels great in the hand thanks to a pleasant soft-touch back. The Gigabyte-made device packs a 4-inch glass-capacitive 1024x600-pixel LCD (that's 300dpi), an 8-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2460 CPU, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of built-in storage. While the screen looks decent enough, it falls somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of viewing angles. The phone features Android 2.3.7 (Gingerbread) and runs most apps from the Google Play store directly via an emulation layer. Performance matched prior benchmarks and was on-par with current mid-range ARM-based Android handsets -- the experience was mostly smooth, but we noticed some lag when scrolling and zooming pages in the web browser. Battery life remains the major outstanding question when it comes to Medfield handsets, so expect more details once we have our very own review unit. In the meantime, check out the gallery below and hit the break for our hands-on video.%Gallery-157275%
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.
Orange's Santa Clara Medfield phone gets benchmarked, well, the browser does
Wondering how those Medfield handsets stack up to their ARM-powered competition? Well, we can't promise a full suite of benchmarks just yet, but we do have a peek at a pair of browser-centric tests. The German Caschys Blog managed to get a hold of Orange's upcoming Santa Clara device at CeBit and ran Qualcomm's Vellamo and Rightware's BrowserMark on the Atom handset. In both metrics the Z2460 more than holds its own, scoring an 89,180 on the web-based BrowserMark -- putting it just ahead of the iPhone 4S which clocks in at 87,801, but well behind the Galaxy Nexus' 98,272. Things look just as promising on the slightly more hardware-intensive Vellamo where it trounced the latest Nexus and was hot on the heels of the Xiaomi Mi-One Plus and Transformer Prime. Of course, neither of these tests really tax the CPU or measure 3D graphics performance. We're not even sure what the clock speed on chip inside the handset is. We were originally led to believe 1.6GHz, though, Caschy is reporting the model he manhandled was running at just 1.4GHz. Then, there's perhaps the biggest question of all -- battery life. For that, we'll just have to wait and see.
Lava brings Intel-based smartphones to India with the XOLO X900
Intel has already announced a partnership with Orange to bring the first Intel-based smartphone to Europe, and it's now also announced a deal with Lava International to bring a similar phone to India. Like the Orange phone, this new XOLO X900 is based on Intel's reference design, and packs a 1.6GHz Atom Z2460 processor, a high-res 4-inch display (presumably the same 600 x 1024), front and rear-facing cameras, support for HSPA+ networks, built-in NFC, and HDMI connectivity -- plus what appears to be stock Android 2.3 for an OS, with no mention of a possible ICS upgrade just yet. Still no firm word on launch details for the phone either, but Intel says it's expected to be available early in the second quarter of this year.
Intel details Medfield plans, announces a trio of phone-friendly Atoms
The age of Medfield is upon us. At Mobile World Congress Intel took the wraps off its smartphone platform, ditched the code name and gave us some details on three different Atom chips destined for handsets. The Z2460 is currently shipping and serves as the heart of the reference platform that devices from Lenovo, Orange, Lava and ZTE are based on. The processor can hit clock speeds of 2GHz and packs an Intel XMM 6260 HSPA+ radio. The next generation part, dubbed the Z2580 will supposedly double performance and gets upgraded to an XMM 7160, which adds LTE to its cellular arsenal. Down the road Chipzilla also plans to introduce a "value smartphone" processor, dubbed the Z2000. Clocked at only 1GHz and going with a 6265 HSPA+ radio, the goal is to power Android phones that can be sold for less than $150 -- unsubsidized. Sounds crazy, but it's true. To bring this vision to fruition Intel has added Orange, ZTE, Lava and Visa to its list of partners. Check out the PR after the break for more details.
Motorola and Intel hold hands for multi-year, multi-device partnership, shipments start 2H 2012
Well, look who just showed up at Intel's CES 2012 keynote? Motorola Mobility's own Sanjay Jha just grabbed a bit of the limelight -- long enough to announce a multi-year, multi-device agreement that should see Intel's Medfield chips powering Moto's hardware (the second announced behind Lenovo) in the not-too-distant future. Naturally, we're guessing Android will be the OS of choice here, but we can only guess what Motorola's going to do when all of its other chip partners come knocking with new questions. Update: We've learned that product shipments from the partnership will start in the second half of this year. Follow along at our Intel liveblog here!
Intel demos Medfield-based smartphone reference design at CES (video)
There we go! Head past all the months-old Ultrabooks in Intel's CES booth, and you'll stumble across something less pedestrian: a reference smartphone, based on the chipmaker's Medfield platform. How it looks is irrelevant, really -- that chintzy, fingerprint-prone slab of plastic offers no hints as to what the Samsungs and HTCs of the smartphone world are going to create. What matters here is what's inside: this 4-inch handset packs a single-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2460 chip, XXM 6260 modem and Intel GMA graphics, along with your requisite WiFi radio, accelerometer, etc. (Intel had Gingerbread installed, though that'll hardly be current by the time Medfield starts shipping.) Though battery life will naturally vary by manufacturer, this particular device houses a 1,460mAh juicepack promising 45 hours of audio playback, eight hours of 3G voice calls, five hours of 3G browsing or 14 days of standby. At the same time, Intel was demoing Modern Combat 2, as you can see in that lead shot, and playing HD video playing through the phone's micro-HDMI slot. Look closely at those videos below, and you'll see the output is mostly smooth with some slight stuttering, though trust us when we say video playback and gaming were more fluid on the device itself. Have a peek below and judge for yourselves, and hopefully one day in the not-too-distant future we'll be able to size up the battery life situation too.
