Motorola Announces RARZi with 2GHz Intel CPU in the UK
Phone will launch in UK, France, Germany, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico to start with.
If you can cast your mind back to the week before the iPhone 5 announcement, you might remember that it was a pretty big week for the mobile industry. Between new Kindles, new Lumias and a new Motorola Droid Razr M, we definitely weren't short of devices to talk about. However, for all the newly announced gadgets we had to talk about, one that caught our attention was one that hadn't yet been announced. When asked about availability for the United Kingdom, a Motorola spokesperson said that the Droid Razr M would be coming to the UK but with an Intel processor under the hood.
Today, the company unveiled its brand new Intel-powered phone at an event in London. The company has called this device The RAZRi, though it is very similar to the just-announced Razr M. Packing a a 4.3-inch AMOLED display, an 8-megapixel camera with HDR and Android 4.0, the biggest difference is the Intel chip that's replacing the 1.5GHz Qualcomm processor in the Razr M. According to Intel, this Atom chip boasts a max clock speed of 2GHz.
Though Intel and Motorola mentioned nothing more specific than the beginning of October as far as availability is concerned, UK retailer Clove told us they expect first shipment in the first week of October. They also confirmed SIM-free price of £342 and already have the phone up for pre-order from their website.
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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.
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Bloob So I'm guessing apps using the Android NDK do not work on Intel chips ( unless there is a seperate version )?Reply -
tomsreader any info about performance & battery life, like switching from Qualcomm makes it better or worse?Reply -
nuhamind2 Apps designed for ARM can run on intel with insctruction set emulation, otherwise apps can be recompiled targetting intel ISA.Reply -
subasteve5800 2 GHz? Sounds like they are using clock speed to make up for an IPC deficit. Doesn't bode well for battery life.Reply -
bustapr:Reply
"what instruction set does this atom have?"
x86
subasteve:
2 GHz? Sounds like they are using clock speed to make up for an IPC deficit. Doesn't bode well for battery life.
Nope! Just the opposite, in fact. The Atom outpaces the ARM designs by a wide margin and the Atom's FPU isnt crippled like in the ARM designs. We can expect FLOPS numbers in the GFLOPS range from Intel while ARM is still struggling to reach 1 GFLOP.
ARM has something to worry about.
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blazorthon BloobSo I'm guessing apps using the Android NDK do not work on Intel chips ( unless there is a seperate version )?Reply
Last I checked, most of the Android stuff runs in Java. Intel chips shouldn't have a problem running most Android apps if that's true. There might need to be a minor emulation/translation layer or something like that for the little that isn't compatible Java code or some other clever trick(s), but it shouldn't be overly difficult to run Android on x86 CPUs with full compatibility. It is definitely possible, although I don't know for sure what method(s) would be used.