ZTE’s Grand X IN: hands-on with the first Intel-based Android 4.0 phone

Here at IFA, Intel and ZTE are showing off the Grand X IN, the first Android 4.0 phone to be based on an Intel Medfield processor and one of only a handful of phones running Medfield at all. We’ve just taken a quick look at the phone, which ZTE based on its recently released Grand X but updated with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2460 processor. As we noted in our review, the original Grand X wasn’t particularly fast, and the new processor (along with more RAM) seemed to give it a welcome performance boost.

Outside of its Intel processor, the Grand X IN is a slightly upgraded version of the Grand X, which ZTE launched last month. It now carries 1GB of RAM rather than 512MB and has an 8-megapixel rear camera rather than a 5-megapixel one, but the 960 x 540 screen and 1,650mAh battery haven’t changed. The Grand X IN also sticks with the same rounded corners and washboard plastic back as its predecessor, and it likely has the same build quality issues we noticed the first time around. Like the Grand X, it runs Android 4.0 but uses four capacitive buttons along the bottom, including the outdated Menu and Search ones. It has, however, been updated to 4.0.4, rather than 4.0.3 like the original Grand X.

The first Grand X IN press shots showed it running a fairly ugly Android 4.0 skin, rather than the stock build used in the Grand X. Fortunately, the handsets we saw seemed barely skinned, with only some small design changes. That makes this new version a win all around for anyone who liked the straightforward design of the Grand X but balked at its specs. As we heard before, the phone will be available in Europe starting in September, but we still don’t know how much it will cost or which companies will carry it.