Intel Shows Off Its Smart Phone and Tablet for 2012

2012 appears to be the year that the BIG Chipmaker pushes further into the Mobile Market.  With it’s latest “Atom” processor dubbed Medfield.  It’s lower power and all in one chip approach could bring the chip giant the leg up in this lucrative, market.

Prototype devices show Intel chips running devices that could challenge the iPhone and iPad early next year.

Intel released the prototype of a Smart Phone running Google’s Android OS on the Medfield.

The Chip and devices will be directly targeting the domination that ARM processors have held on the Mobile,  Smartphone and Tablet markets.  Recent news out of AMD also reported a shift toward capturing a piece of this market as well.Last week, Technology Review tried out prototype smart phones and tablets equipped with Intel's latest mobile chip, dubbed Medfield, and running the Android mobile operating system created by Google. "We expect products based on these to be announced in the first half of 2012," says Stephen Smith, vice president of Intel's architecture group.

Known as "reference designs," the devices are sent out to inspire and instruct manufacturers interested in building products around Intel's latest technology. "They can use as much or as little of the reference design as they like," says Smith, who hinted that the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in January could bring news of gadgets in which Intel's chips will appear.

The phone prototype seen by Technology Review was similar in dimensions to the iPhone 4 but noticeably lighter, probably because the case was made with more plastic and less glass and metal. It was running the version of Google's operating system shipping with most Android phones today, known as Gingerbread; a newer version, Ice Cream Sandwich, was released by Google only about a month ago.

Intel's reference tablet, which used the same Medfield chip as the phone, was running the latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich. It had a slightly larger screen than the iPad 2 but was about the same in thickness and weight. A limited trial suggested that it was noticeably nicer to use than older tablets based on the abandoned Honeycomb version of Android.

Intel has tried to gain traction in mobile devices before, but those efforts were unsuccessful. In the immediate aftermath of the iPhone's meteoric rise, the company focused on netbooks and mobile Internet device.computers larger than smart phones that never became popular. A long-term effort to develop an open-source mobile operating system to rival Android, called Meego, was scrapped earlier this year when partner Nokia signed a deal with Microsoft to use Windows instead.

The phone was powerful and pleasing to use, on a par with the latest iPhone and Android handsets. It could play Blu-Ray-quality video and stream it to a TV if desired; Web browsing was smooth and fast. Smith says Intel has built circuits into the Medfield chip specifically to speed up Android apps and Web browsing.