When Intel announced the first Medfield-powered phone at CES 2012 this past January, the phone the company had on stage was Kenovo's K800. Last week, Intel's Sean Maloney confirmed that the K800 would launch in May. However, recent comments made by Intel CEO Paul Otellini implied that the first Medfield phone would launch this week. Though most people assumed this meant the K800 would be hitting sooner than Maloney thought, it seems Otellini was talking about a different phone altogether.
Apparently, the world's first Medfield phone will be neither the Lenovo K800 nor the Orange Santa Clara, which was announced MWC and is set to be the first Medfield phone in Europe. According to a press release, Intel has teamed up with Lava International Ltd, a cell phone company in India, to produce the Xolo X900. Bound for the Indian market, the Xolo is based on Intel's smartphone reference design and features a 1.6GHz Atom Z2460 (aka Medfield) with Intel Hyper Threading Technology, 400 MHz graphics, a 4-inch 1024 x 600 display, full 1080p HD video encoding and playback, a 1-megapixel camera up front, an 8-megapixel camera in the back, and support for HSPA+ 3G connectivity. The phone will ship with Android Gingerbread but Intel is already promising an OTA update to Ice Cream Sandwich.
"The first smartphone with Intel inside is now available to Indian consumers," said Mike Bell, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of the Mobile and Communications Group. "The boundaries of personal computing are expanding. As we enter the India market with our first smartphone from Lava, the device not only showcases the rich capabilities and user benefits of Intel computing, but also highlights the exciting possibilities of what's still to come."
Pricing for the phone is set at INR 22000, which translates to about $425 by today's exchange rates, and it's going on sale April 24. No word on whether this phone will make it outside of its native India, but we're doubtful it will. Still, Lenovo's K800 is launching next month and the Orange Medfield is expected to land in Europe this summer, so that's something to look forward to.
