Intel inside your smartphone: Medfield and Silvermont – The Verge

Intel is losing billions every year on tablets and smartphones

2014-04-15T16:47:50-04:00

In recent months, Intel has been under pressure to explain why personal computers haven't been selling quite as well. But the chipmaker may have another pressing concern: losing billions of dollars on mobile. In 2013, Intel's mobile chip division lost a hefty $3.15 billion, after posting an operating loss of $1.78 billion in 2012. In the first quarter of 2014 alone, the Mobile and Communications Group saw a $929 million operating loss on a meager $156 million in revenue, according to new financial results issued today by the company.

While we'd previously seen Intel struggle for success with smartphones and tablets, this is the first quarte …

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Silvermont: Intel’s promise to power phones and tablets you’d actually want

2013-05-06T23:55:02-04:00

Gallery Photo:

Today, nearly all modern smartphones use an ARM-based processor, along with every iPad and practically every Android tablet as well. Soon, though, Intel's x86 silicon might finally pose a challenge. Six years after laying out a roadmap for power-efficient processors for tiny computers, and several failed attempts to make a real dent, Intel impressed us last October with just how power-efficient its Medfield chip could be compared to the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon. That chip used the company's Saltwell core inside, but this year the company's introducing Silvermont, and Intel claims the new 22nm architecture will more than hold its own agains …

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Intel will show off more dual-core Android smartphones at Mobile World Congress next month

2013-01-31T20:55:05-05:00

intel atom roadmap 2 560

Intel showed us it could create a competent mid-range smartphone with decent processing power and battery life to spare, and then the company decided to create a somewhat slower SOC for poorer countries like Africa. Next month at the Mobile World Congress expo in Barcelona, however, the chipmaker's pulling out the big guns: We'll see a bunch of Android devices with the Atom Z2580, a much faster piece of silicon.

Intel actually announced the chip a year ago, but it should be a major step up. Where last year's Z2460 had a single-core processor with the aging single-core PowerVR SGX 540 graphics and only HSPA+ radio support, the new Z2580 has …

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Intel launches the Yolo, its first smartphone for Africa

2013-01-24T16:14:49-05:00

via www.techweez.com

Intel's chips for smartphones have made strides since we first reviewed them last year, but it's still fairly rare to find one in the wild. So what is Intel telling people who might take a gamble on a more niche processor? Yolo. Released through carrier Safaricom, the Yolo is Intel's first African smartphone, as well as the first phone we've seen to use the Lexington Atom chip Intel announced at CES. Despite what will jump to mind for most of us, the name is a nod to the Lava Xolo X900, the very first Intel phone. The Xolo was announced for India in mid-2012, while the Yolo is now coming to Kenya.

The Yolo is based on Intel's reference desi …

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Intel’s Atom Z2420 ‘Lexington’ smartphone for emerging markets feels lethargic right now

2013-01-08T10:49:03-05:00

Gallery Photo: Intel Atom Z2420 reference design hands-on pictures

Yesterday, Intel introduced a brand new Atom smartphone processor at CES 2013, but it looks like one you'd never personally want in a phone: We just got our hands on the first Lexington prototype, and it's maddeningly slow. Of course, this is a prototype we're talking about, and an extremely cheap one for emerging markets as well, but each time we tried to load up an app on the single-core, hyperthreaded 1.2GHz Atom processor (or perhaps some particularly terrible flash storage?) it took loads of time to get it up. While we were able to swipe around most of the core Android 4.0.4 operating system fairly smoothly and without much issue, and t …

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Intel unveils new ‘Lexington’ Z2420 mobile Atom for smartphones in developing nations

2013-01-07T16:13:53-05:00

Intel Lexington

Intel has just announced its latest Atom chip, the Z2420. The company is looking to target smartphones and tablets in developing nations with this specific chip, building a reference platform with some more modest specs compared to Medfield devices. Intel's reference design comes with a 3.5-inch 320 x 240 display, a 1.2Ghz single-core processor with HyperThreading, and a custom Intel radio that supports HSPA+. Dual SIMs support is onboard, and the platform also has wireless display capabilities. Intel says that several companies are currently working on devices based on the reference design, including Acer and Lava. As you might recall, Lava …

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RAZR i, believe: does Intel’s first real smartphone measure up?

2012-10-04T15:00:05-04:00

Razr_i_1020

Whether you think it's a post-PC or a PC-plus era, Intel's motivation for scaling down its processors for use in smaller devices is clear. The past few years have seen the mobile and tablet market grow and grow, and Intel has been very slow to react. Finally, after countless failures, Intel proved that it could power a smartphone earlier this year with the release of the Orange San Diego. The phone was one of the worldâ€™s first to feature an Intel x86 chip, a cousin to the silicon that sits inside your laptop or desktop PC. It put to rest longstanding worries about performance and battery life on the x86 platform, but was thoroughly dull an …

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Motorola RAZR i handset runs Android with an Intel processor (hands-on video)

2012-09-18T05:10:28-04:00

Gallery Photo: Motorola Razr i hands-on photos

Today in London, Motorola is announcing the first fruit of its multi-year, multi-device partnership with Intel - a revamped Droid RAZR M called the RAZR i. While the two phones look almost identical externally, inside the new device houses a new Intel Atom processor. The chipmaker says this is its first with a maximum clock speed of 2GHz, but that number is far from a cut-and-dry measure of the chip's performance, and the claim should be taken with a grain of salt. The new chip isn't dual-core, but being a Medfield processor it does support hyper-threading, and Intel claims it stacks up well against the competition. The phone is one of the fi …

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Intel’s first smartphone with Motorola will be a revamped Droid RAZR M

2012-09-05T17:27:44-04:00

Gallery Photo: Droid RAZR M hands-on pictures

Earlier today, Motorola and Verizon revealed the Droid RAZR M, a $99 smartphone that sticks a 4.3-inch, practically edge-to-edge screen into a decidedly tiny package. Now, Pocket-lint is reporting that Motorola intends to re-use the same RAZR M design for its first Intel-powered smartphone. We've been eagerly awaiting the fruits of a Motorola-Intel partnership ever since the companies announced one at CES, and soon after that we saw some alleged pictures of the first phone. Look familiar, no? Now, it appears that the device will be sold in both dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon and Intel Medfield Atom models, though Pocket-lint says the I …

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

2012-08-31T10:29:09-04:00

Gallery Photo: ZTE Grand X IN with Intel processor

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 o …

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