Lenovo's Intel Atom-powered Medfield Phone to Launch Next Month

By Jane McEntegart
published

Lenovo's Medfield phone to debut in May.

We've been quite patient in waiting for the first of Intel's smartphones to come to fruition, and in January Intel announced the first Medfield-based smartphone in the form of the Lenovo K800. Featuring the low-power Intel Atom Z2460 with Hyper-Threading Technology and support for HSPA+, the K800 packed a 4.5-inch 720p display and Android 4.0. However, that was almost four months ago, and we've heard little about the Lenovo K800 since. Intel had said the Ice Cream Sandwich device would have the Lenovo LeOS user interface for a localized experience in China where it was apparently scheduled to launch in the second quarter, but there's been little else revealed about the first Medfield phone's launch.

Today, word has it that the K800 could land in stores as soon as next month. According to Intel's Sean Maloney, the phone will arrive in May. Maloney announced the news via Weibo, a popular Chinese microblogging site, but failed to provide any further information on pricing, a specific date, or details on an international launch. Maloney did highlight the fact that the phone will pack Intel's new Avatar Technology but, again, provided little else in the way of additional information on that.

Full specs for the K800 have not been made available as of yet, but we're hoping to learn more about the phone and the possibility of a North American launch when the device hits China next month. Europe's first Medfield phone is the Orange Santa Clara, which was shown off at MWC in Barcelona in February/March of this year and will arrive this coming summer.

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Jane McEntegart
14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • classzero
    It's an atom, no thank you.
    Reply
  • Cy-Kill
    ...Maloney did highlight the fact that the phone will pack Intel's new Avatar Technology...

    So, we'll be able to inhabit other beings, and use them as our avatars! :P
    Reply
  • blazorthon
    lostmyclanCeleron atom ? no Thanks...classzeroIt's an atom, no thank you.
    Are you two seriously saying you wouldn't buy it strictly because of the brand name of the CPU? Medfield beats the dual core ARM chips despite having only one Hyper-Threaded core. It is obviously just as good as the ARMs are. Intel will need to improve it significantly when the Cortex A15s come out, but it is an excellent competitor for dual core A9s.
    Reply
  • glenricky
    blazorthonAre you two seriously saying you wouldn't buy it strictly because of the brand name of the CPU? Medfield beats the dual core ARM chips despite having only one Hyper-Threaded core. It is obviously just as good as the ARMs are. Intel will need to improve it significantly when the Cortex A15s come out, but it is an excellent competitor for dual core A9s.
    But then Intel would have released their dual core Z2580 or the 22nm Silvermont. For myself, I would go for a phone that can run windows and all application my laptop has
    Reply
  • hector2
    classzeroIt's an atom, no thank you.
    Excuse me, but the competition is ARM ! Cell phones aren't exactly high performance servers. LOL
    Reply
  • hythos
    glenrickyBut then Intel would have released their dual core Z2580 or the 22nm Silvermont. For myself, I would go for a phone that can run windows and all application my laptop has^ This is what I continue to hope for... and NOT via Windows8/mobile...
    DOSBox, etc.
    Reply
  • __-_-_-__
    it will run windows 7 ^^
    Reply
  • richarduk
    glenrickyBut then Intel would have released their dual core Z2580 or the 22nm Silvermont. For myself, I would go for a phone that can run windows and all application my laptop hasblazorthonAre you two seriously saying you wouldn't buy it strictly because of the brand name of the CPU? Medfield beats the dual core ARM chips despite having only one Hyper-Threaded core. It is obviously just as good as the ARMs are. Intel will need to improve it significantly when the Cortex A15s come out, but it is an excellent competitor for dual core A9s.
    I've run Ubuntu 11.04 on a panda board running dual core 1gig arms with 1gig ram against 1.5gig dual core + hyper threading Atom (previous gen 330 + NVidia Ion) with 4gig ram, and the Arm system 'feels' far more responsive! My very unscientific test suggests Intel have a LOT of ground to make up. P.s. The Atom system was installed on a SSD and the arm system on an 8gig sd card so the Atom had more hd bandwidth to play with, I was surprised it did not do better. Both played 1080p HD fine (but that is no test of the cpu)
    Reply
  • blazorthon
    richardukI've run Ubuntu 11.04 on a panda board running dual core 1gig arms with 1gig ram against 1.5gig dual core + hyper threading Atom (previous gen 330 + NVidia Ion) with 4gig ram, and the Arm system 'feels' far more responsive! My very unscientific test suggests Intel have a LOT of ground to make up. P.s. The Atom system was installed on a SSD and the arm system on an 8gig sd card so the Atom had more hd bandwidth to play with, I was surprised it did not do better. Both played 1080p HD fine (but that is no test of the cpu)
    That is a completely different Atom processor... That's like saying that Sandy Bridge i5s suck after trying out a Nehalem dual core i5. Same brand name, but completely different processors. Also, Ubuntu on ARM is probably not the exact same as Ubuntu on X86.
    Reply
  • eddieroolz
    Wow, amazed that after years of talk Intel is finally on the verge of launching its dream device.
    Reply