Intel enters the smartphone market, and
Kevin Pocock takes the call
Intel may once have been denied the chance
of copyrighting the letter ‘i’, but in hindsight the failure to make such a
brand statement was trivial. Today the name is synonymous with computing and,
of course, processors. Well, system, server and notebook processors. Up until
now Intel hasn’t been a huge name in the mobile space, but all that seems
likely to change.
Intel
enters the smartphone market
A good aim
I witnessed what seemed part of the
realisation, 32 floors above ground level in Central London. If Intel wanted to
make a suggestion as to the height of its ambitions, this was a way to do so.
However, the gathered journalists were on-hand to admire only the Orange San
Diego. Codenamed Santa Clara, the San Diego is Intel’s first foray into
smartphones in Europe, and it’s a rather attainable and, on first glance,
impressive one at that.
The San Diego’s no iPhone-beater or Galaxy
S3 smasher, but then it’s not supposed to be. Orange confirmed the pricing:
Until 24th July, the handset will be free on a $25, 24-month contract and $300
for Pay As You Go customers buying $15 of top-up credit. The immediate desire,
or tactic if you prefer, is clear: to provide a good-quality smartphone at a
similarly smart price, and to secure a strong foothold in the mid-range market.
Whether the San Diego will deliver on the promise is really up to users, but
the hardware seems to be doing its best to play the part.
The
San Diego is Intel’s first foray into smartphones in Europe
In some hands-on time, I was immediately
impressed by the phone’s responsiveness and browsing speed, which when
connected to wi-fi took as little as four seconds to load a page. Both of those
will be important for Intel and, combined with a smart but understated design
and some nice hardware specifications, the handset left many a journalist
nodding initial approval.
Up the sleeves
To think of the San Diego as Intel’s wary
toe in the water is to ignore the bigger, global picture. Although the
smartphone will be the company’s first launch in Europe, form factor reference
designs (FFRDs) have been about for some months, and indeed two Medfield (the
name of the Intel platform) devices have already been spotted elsewhere in the
world.
Lenovo’s
K800, the first Medfield device in China
First out of the traps was the Xolo 900,
launched in India in mid-April. Then at the end of May came Lenovo’s K800, the
first Medfield device in China. That makes the San Diego smartphone the third
of Intel’s new Medfield-based devices. Yet the San Diego looks very, very
similar to the Xolo 900. Why is this important? Partly because it has a touch
of the iPhone about it (metallic trim anyone?), but also because it hints at a
bigger achievement for Intel. In building such a smart FFRD as a way to
showcase the Medfield platform, Intel’s design team has demonstrated an
appreciation of smartphone aesthetics, just as the technical specs of the Xolo
and San Diego hope to deliver on an appreciation of performance requirements.
Tech in strides
Intel has approached mobile before, though,
specifically with Moorestown. In 2010 it was aiming to deliver a platform with
a system on chip (S0C) codenamed Lincroft, alongside an OS few will probably
even recall, named Moblin. The system would have at its heart a 45nm Intel Atom
Z600 processor, and as a ‘Backgrounder’ document from the Intel Archives
relates, it was intended to represent “a complete hardware and software
platform, making it easier for customers to deliver compelling handheld
devices”. That never really happened. Although the platform was shown off in
form factor designs and did come to light in a few tablets, several factors
including the arrival of 32nm fabrication processes and a particularly strong
grip on mobile processing from ARM meant the 45nm Lincroft processor in
Moorestown was never to fulfil its potential.
The
45nm Lincroft processor in Moorestown
Intel learned from that, though, and it
seems to be putting Medfield on the same level as its other platform interests.
That being the case, it’s not just the San Diego we should be watching
carefully. Motorola mobility, now a part of Google, is believed to be preparing
an Intel-based SoC device, not necessarily lending itself to the single- core
Saltwell processor that is present in the San Diego. Medfield is the platform
for the San Diego, but it’s likely to not be the only SoC platform we see from
Intel.
I see you
The Medfield platform that the San Diego
uses is powered by the Atom Z2460. The CPU side of things is handled by the
1.6GHz Saltwell core, while the GPU growl comes from the 400MHz PowerVR SGX540.
Just to delve a little into the graphics side of things, it’s fair to say that
the SGX540 is a much-loved graphics counterpart for system-on-chip solutions.
It’s not exclusive to Intel by any means, and to give an idea of its
credentials members of the PowerVR 5 (SGX) series can be found inside the A4
processors that grace some models of iPhones, iPods and iPads. They’re also present
in Texas Instrument’s OMAP SoCs, found in the BlackBerry Playbook, Galaxy Tab
and others. The 5 series’ slightly more powerful sibling the 5XT (SGXMP) is
utilised in the PlayStation Vita, as well as the iPad 2.
The
Medfield platform that the San Diego uses is powered by the Atom Z2460
Graphically, then, Intel’s SoC should be
comparable with SoC solutions produced by ARM and Texas Instruments. The key
difference, though, is that Intel’s SoC is based on an architecture it knows
well: x86. It’s fair to say that bringing x86 to the smartphone market raises a
few questions. Though graphics capabilities will be competitive with many
devices, the Atom processors will be directly competing against other SoC
providers, meaning that Intel’s cores - the Saltwell core of the San Diego
being the first - will be directly competing against the cores of other SoC
manufacturers. The fact that Intel is actually launching products consumers can
put in their pockets (unlike with Moorestown) should hint that the company is fairly
serious about its chances here.
