Will the new processor in
Orange's latest 'city' phone be a dream or a nightmare? Let's we investigate...
In recent months we've seen phones from
Huawei and Alcatel bring mid-level functionality to budget-minded handsets, and
now the latest Orange 'city' phone is adding something completely new to the
market. The Orange San Diego, the latest in a series that hit its high point
with the incredibly popular San Francisco, is priced at a touch under $310 and
is the first phone to be powered by Intel's impressive new processor, known as
Medfield.
Orange San Diego smartphone
The Galaxy S III and the One X may be
garnering all the attention but there are lots of exciting things at the more
price conscious end of the market as well.
While processors don't make for hugely
important selling points for the typical consumer, at least unless you're
talking about major speed or performance boosts in quad-core devices like the
SIII, the arrival of Medfield is significant. Android has been dominated so far
by processors based on the ARM architecture, but Medfield processors are, like
Intel's desktop chips, based on the x86 architecture. The two are not directly
compatible, with the upshot being that apps written for ARM devices (i.e. all
of them) are not guaranteed to run on the San Diego. Orange has said that 70
per cent of apps in the Google Play store are supported, so you'll need to make
sure that your favorites aren't included in that missing 30 per cent.
Orange has said that 70 per cent of apps in the Google Play store are
supported, so you'll need to make sure that your favorites aren't included in
that missing 30 per cent.
Away from the technical complications the
Orange San Diego has much to commend it. There's a four-inch screen with 1024x
600 pixel resolution, an eight-megapixel camera that shoots full HD video and
has a burst mode of ten still photos per second.
The processor is clocked at 1.6GHz (single
core) and has 1GB RAM, and the device comes in at just under 10mm thick. The
phone also supports Orange's HD Voice service which provides higher quality
sound in voice calls, and it's also worth noting that there's plenty of
Orange's customary bloat ware on show as you would expect.
The San Diego looks an appealing device.
There are a few question marks hovering over it - how will the largely untested
processor affect battery life, will the different architecture making it a
dream or a nightmare for the Android hacking community - but a good spec, solid
design and relatively low price could make it yet another winner for Orange.
