Intel's First Phone is the Xolo X900, On Sale April 23

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.

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  • halcyon
    I like how its only available in India. Is that supposed to be some kind of test market?
    Reply
  • sharpiedpanda
    Maybe they are testing the functionality of the hardware over there and bringing it to the states when Windows 8 launches
    Reply
  • vilenjan
    Considering the number of Intel employees that come from India, its like a national brand there :P
    Reply
  • halcyon
    From what I can discern this phone looks like another "me-too" device. I think if you dislike Apple these "me-too" devices may be appealing. However, being brand agnostic, the Razr/Razr Maxx were the only compelling (and non-plastic cased) Android phones I really liked enough to spend money on. ...too bad the screens really left a lot to be desired.
    Reply
  • classzero
    India can keep that atom phone
    Reply
  • besplatan
    I don't really care about an x86 phone. There shouldn't be any advantage in having the same architecture or OS on all your devices. Instead, the same services and apps should be available on all devices, so we don't get locked in to a specific hardware or OS manufacturer.
    Reply
  • ojas
    lol now why haven't i heard of this till now? Should be interesting, 22k is the Lumia 800's price.

    India a test market? We've more phone users than the US. More people than the US. No carriers complaining of spectrum shortage. Extremely cheap calling rates. NO crappy contracts except on iCrap and a tiny minority of other handsets (i think the ZTE Blade is ONE other example i can think of) and tablets selling as cheap as $60.

    Test market? lmao. The phone could be a pilot unit (hence the local manufacturer), but Intel and China are markets manufacturers want to expand, not "test".

    Anyway, i think this may actually sell pretty well, seeing how popular Android (and Intel) is here. Plus OTA ICS is a win, and i don't know of any 22k Android phone with ICS coming its way (maybe some samsungs? idk, haven't heard of any so far)

    And a 1.6 GHz Atom is weak for a cell phone? I think Android is bigger bottleneck than the processor.
    Reply
  • dosdecarnitas
    SOLD!!! sign me up for one
    Reply
  • A user should never care what is inside their phone. They should care about the service and the reliability. Whether it is ARM or Intel shouldn't really matter. The more competition the better so may ARM and Intel clash for decades. It will be good for the consumer.
    Reply
  • dosdecarnitas
    dosdecarnitasSOLD!!! sign me up for one
    thats because my Iphone 4 just blew up
    Reply