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Motorola's First Intel-Based Handset Launches In UK
New submitter lookatmyhorse writes "As promised, Google's Motorola unit has released its first Intel-powered smartphone. The Razr i is based on a mid-range model sold in the U.S. that features an ARM-based Snapdragon processor. Motorola said the change of chip meant improved camera performance. However, it has also meant Google's Chrome browser is not installed on the device. Intel recently cut its sales forecasts citing weaker demand. Although it dominates PC chip sales, it is a niche player in the smart device sector. The handset is Motorola's first to feature an Intel processor; its existing smartphone partners — ZTE, Lenovo, Lava, and Gigabyte — are all relatively minor smartphone forces in Western markets. So, Intel's tie-up with Google — which also makes the Android system — is widely seen as its most significant effort to crack the market to date. The handset will be offered in the UK, France, Germany and Latin America."
1. Motorola using an intel processor?!? (ok, so it's really Motorola Mobility which is really motoroogle, but still...)
2. A Google phone without Chrome?!?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I don't think I was the only one hoping for x86-compatible instead of yet again another ARM-based processor.
Kriston
Yes, that seems to be the trend and I wonder why. It would be easy to put a killer battery in a phone by changing the form factor back to something like this instead of making phones smaller and smaller. Surely there must be other people like me who don't mind a larger phone if it means significantly longer battery life?
Intel has previously released a 1.6Ghz chip that is at least somewhat similar(possibly worse, I don't know how much improvement there has been between that one and this 2Ghz model). It didn't feature in any phones of particular interest, a few mid-ish range ones on non-US carriers; but benchmarks suggested that it was pretty much even, in performance and battery life, to ARM phones in the dual 1.5Ghz processor range...
It does seem that the 'smartphone' category has been pegged at "Well, one working day of use is all the battery life people care about, so if you find yourself above that, make the phone slimmer, the screen bigger, or add a uselessly overpowered cellular modem..." territory; but Intel does seem to have things down to less risible power levels.
This certainly isn't the first-gen Atom combined with a 20-watt 945G...
Android is an ARMv7 platform, just like Windows is x86, no matter how hard anyone tries to change it.
With x86 Android, all the CPU-intensive apps, WON'T RUN. They mention Chrome, but Firefox is also out. Non-trivial games won't run, as they're all native ARMv7. I know I make extensive use of emulators like MAME and others on my phone, but not if it's missing an ARMv7 CPU.
Multimedia apps are almost all out of the question, as they're ARMv7 for performance reasons. This includes Flash, so no luck if you wanted to use it. For multimedia, you're pretty much stuck with the piss-poor built-in audio and video players, since they've gone through the trouble of recompiling/porting them to x86.
My point is simple... No matter how fast the CPU may be, you aren't going to be able to run ANY apps that would benefit from a fast CPU, cause none of them will run, AT ALL. I think the potential for a non-ARM chip will have to come from the low-end instead... Maybe China's ridiculously cheap, low-end MIPS CPUs will make for cheap enough low-end tablets, that aren't fast enough for games and video anyhow, that developers slowly begin porting their apps, and opening the door for high-end MIPS devices as well.
Intel's strategy seems inherently doomed.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
BBC says 20 hours between charges. They're competing against an iPhone 5 which is thinner and ten times longer battery life.
You say it's comparable performance to ARM dual core, but I don't see any evidence from you. This is not IBM, you don't get to sell people a 25 MIPS mainframe pretend it's superfast. They'll benchmark it. It's unlikely a single core CISC processor will be faster than a dual core RISK.
Intel needs to up its game.
Older Atom chips were often less efficient, like-for-like, than ARM chips. While Intel (will) have made improvements, it takes a while to change people's perceptions.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
I vote in. I'd take an iPhone 50% thicker with doubled battery life over the current one any day.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
The battery will only last 1/4 as long.
Whoa, let's not get so optimistic! It's also substantially overclocked on medfield! You'll be lucky if this thing has better better life than the original G1.
The same company that now touts an 'Un-Linuxable' chip family? Don't trust them, Google.
My phone (a Samsung Vibrant, or Galaxy S1 if you will) charges from empty to full on 2 hours.
Doubling the charge time for double the capacity doesn't seem like a problem to me, since it usually charges overnight -- and it still leaves the option of a half charge in the same amount of time for the same amount of battery life I have now.
Of course, I sometimes carry one of these around, but that's mainly because tethering is a huge battery drain. Oh, and that+the phone easily fit in one pocket, with the Nexus 7 that is using the phone-provided wifi in the other.
Of course nobody reads the FAQ! If people read the FAQ, the Questions wouldn't be so Frequently Asked.
Perhaps slightly OT, but what do you mean, "unlike Windows"? The NT kernel, which powers what most people think of as "Windows", has been portable for longer than Linux (the kernel) has!
The first portable version of Linux was 1.2 (released March 1995) and supported x86, Alpha, SPARC, and MIPS. The prior release, 1.0 in March 1994, was x86 only.
Windows NT, by comparison, wasn't even developed initially on x86 (explicitly to avoid x86-specific behavior from creeping in), although it was of course ported to x86 before release. The very first release (numbered 3.1 to match the DOS-based Windows version of the time) supported x86, Alpha, and MIPS in July 1993.
I will grant you that only recently has MS bothered to port NT to ARM, but that's because they had another kernel (CE) which they've been using to power ARM devices since at least 1997. However, despite recent massive improvements to CE, it's still inferior to NT for a general-purpose computer (though it has other useful characteristics, such as being hard-realtime and able to run on extremely minimal systems).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
After so many years of dealing with hardware deliberately designed to prevent software from competing with Windows, Linux fans are pretty touchy about this issue. If Intel wants to make the processor version of a Winmodem, they can. But they should expect that it will not be well received by some.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Compared to most phones produced last year, yes. Compare it with HTCs One X or the Samsung Galaxy SIII (or the iPhone 5), and try again.
Also, it beats few phones on GPU performance. That, and power consumption, is probably why Motorola slapped a crappy 540x960 screen in the phone.
Spec sheet for the Razr i says "Up To 20 Hours". That's make it worse off for power consumption than the old Razr M.
Seriously though. Are those actual standby numbers? Do these phones have to be charged atleast once daily, without being used?
I easily get 48h+ on my Galaxy Nexus with light usage (a few phonecalls, some sms/gtalk, checking twitter/mail). It's got a 1750mAh battery.
It's "up to 20 hours" with "normal use" - not standby.
Intel just don't want to waste time and money writing power management drivers for Linux when Microsoft is probably paying them to write drivers for Windows.
Well then the savings is worth the backlash from the community, no?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If you don't mind a thicker iPhone there are external battery packs you can get that clip to the back.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
If you don't mind a thicker iPhone there are external battery packs you can get that clip to the back.
Which is about 50% as efficient as a native battery would be, not mentioning it does cripple your ability to dock your phone, use a case or any other cool thing you do with the accessories designed for your phones.
Write boring code, not shiny code!