First Phones with Intel Chips to Hit in 2011

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By Jane McEntegart
published

Cell phones these days are based on some pretty powerful CPUs. Indeed, if a phone doesn't have a 1GHz processor, it's considered out of date before it even launches. It's also an increasingly competitive market and it's one Intel is about to enter.

Intel's Moorestown platform has long been talked about for MIDs and tablets, however, the company is hoping the CPU will also represent a successful foray into the smartphone market. Intel has talked about Moorestown for smartphones on mulitple occasions and although we can expect to see many Moorestown devices this year, it seems we won't see any smartphones packing the chip until 2011.

While speaking to Wired.com about Moorestown-based tablets, Intel CTO Justin Rattner fingered the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas next January or the Mobile World Congress conference in February as 'windows of opportunity' for showing Moorestown phones.

Though it will likely be 2011 before Intel can put a cell phone into the hands of the consumer, ntel CEO Paul Otellini gave us a peek at an Intel smartphone at CES 2010. He didn't mention specifics about the device's release, but we do know the LG-manufactured GW990 features a 5-inch screen with 720p HD video playback, two cameras, 16GB of built-in flash memory, 512MB of RAM and Intel's Linux-based Moblin OS.

Jane McEntegart
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34 Comments Comment from the forums
  • zanny
    And suddenly the voices of hundreds of batteries cried out in pain.

    1 ghz arm in phones right now running at max frequency not only makes any droid, iphone, htc device a molten brick of hand scorching heat, but it will kill a battery in an hour or less. More powerful processors arn't really the answer right now, since the 1 ghz line isn't even sustainable for a realistic time period yet.
    Reply
  • nforce4max
    Hmmm interesting so long prices drop and Apple stops screwing people so much then all is good.
    Reply
  • mavroxur
    @Zanny - Have you never heard of power management?
    Reply
  • wcooper007
    whats even better is if he would read all the stuff on the moorestown he would see that it can be used for 6 hours or be standby for 60 hours and thermal envelope is where it should be so he is just talking out his Arse ya know
    Reply
  • JimmiG
    mavroxur@Zanny - Have you never heard of power management?
    In that case, neither have the companies mentioned. I love my HTC Desire, but he's right. It does get rather warm under high CPU load, and the battery life could be better. If you use it like a phone, it's fine. But if you use it like a laptop, the battery will last as long as that of a laptop.

    However with Intel's manufacturing technology, and everything integrated into one tiny chip, a charge might last a full day of heavy use, even with a 1 GHz Atom.
    Reply
  • exodite
    ZannyAnd suddenly the voices of hundreds of batteries cried out in pain.It really isn't that bad.

    Intel may change things until release but reading the various articles regarding Moorestown and trying to gather impressions from the few hands-on experiences that's been had it seems the first generation of Moorestown is pretty much on par with the Snapdragons of our time.

    Both in power and... er, power draw.

    Intel does offer a welcome addition to a market mostly dominated by ARM-derivatives but it doesn't look like their impact is going to pull many 'ooh's or 'aah's ATM.
    Reply
  • drakefyre
    That phone looks way too long.
    Reply
  • schmich
    ZannyAnd suddenly the voices of hundreds of batteries cried out in pain.1 ghz arm in phones right now running at max frequency not only makes any droid, iphone, htc device a molten brick of hand scorching heat, but it will kill a battery in an hour or less. More powerful processors arn't really the answer right now, since the 1 ghz line isn't even sustainable for a realistic time period yet.You have to understand that different people have different needs...if you just want to call then by all means get that Samsung phone that lasts 2 months on standby. Current 1Ghz phones neither get super hot nor just last an hour or less. I can even play Quake III Arena for way more on my Galaxy S.

    The Intel chips use more energy but 1) you can pack bigger batteries (current ones are quite small in size), 2) replace batteries and I'm sure those who need that processing power most likely won't be running something for long. At one point we'll reach similar to laptop speeds and at that point would you say that laptops that only last a few hours are crap?
    Reply
  • zanny
    would you say that laptops that only last a few hours are crap?

    If you buy the laptop to use in a mobile environment or over the course of a workday, yes.

    The problem with most of the 1 ghz + smartphones on arm is that the ratio of frequency to power consumption is more exponential than linear.

    My point is intel needs to look into throwing out the most energy efficient per cycle processor if they want to make a splash in the smartphone market.

    Atom is close, but they need to go further.

    Also, q3 arena isnt processor intensive and your phone has dedicated graphics.

    A realistic application of what I mentioned is thus : you record a video, want to put it on youtube asap (ex: a silly stunt or something) and the video is >3 - 4 mins in size, by the 30 second mark the processor is probably at maximum frequency, and the conversion will take around 2 - 3 minutes. Those 3 minutes can easily kill 10% of a battery with the processor running at full clock.
    Reply
  • exodite
    ZannyAtom is close, but they need to go further.Enter Moorestown?

    I'm sorry if I misunderstand you but going by your posts it seems you haven't read up on Moorestown. It's a smartphone processor with significantly improved power envelope over Atom - on par with the high-end ARM Cortex A8 chips of today in performance and power usage.

    One of Intel's mentioned design goals for Moorestown were 'working to idle', which is to say provide a quick power state ramping and high performance so a task can be completed quickly and the processor reduced to an idle state once more.

    We don't have the retail chips in hand of course and it seems we'll have to wait until 2011 until we do but going by what little information that's currently available there seems to be no reason for discounting Moorestown just yet.
    Reply