With a re-organised mobile unit and the new Medfield chipset on the way, Softtalkmobile looks ahead to a big year for Intel.
In the middle of December, just as the Western world began slowing down for the holiday (well, those who don’t work in shops), Intel announced it was creating a division dedicated to mobile communications. The unit combines four divisions: Ultra Mobility, Netbook and Tablets, Mobile Communications and Mobile Wireless.
The underlying motive is to hasten and improve development of mobile devices and components. In practice this means hardware, software and connectivity development, including form factor, reference designs for smartphones, tablets and - I’m guessing - other devices still on the drawing board.
In fact, the first Intel Android smartphone is slated to debut at this week's glitzy CES in Vegas.
It’s also rumoured that Intel will also unveil a prototype tablet, powered by the Atom processor.
While these devices have been in the pipeline for some time, the collapsing of four divisions into one signals Intel’s serious intent in this already crowded market place. And you can bet the action in the smartphone market is going be around the Medfield mobile chip.
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The emergence of this mobile-optimised chipset may have raised a few eyebrows and led to some long and deep sighs. After all, Intel has announced similar plans, several times, over the last few years.
But this time could be different.
Mobile chips need two qualities to give them the punch they need – performance and energy-efficiency. Intel reckons Medfield provides just that by powering faster browsing and graphics performance and lower power consumption than three of the top phones on the market.
There are a lot of ifs and buts as to whether Intel will achieve its aim of gaining a significant foothold in the market. For example, rival chip makers are well versed in the art of constant innovation and the need to have Android apps recompiled to run on x86 chips is a further challenge.
Still, end users care little for behind the scenes science. They just want phones that do lots of whizzy stuff at lightning speed.
On these counts alone, Medfield-based phones should theoretically do well, if the industry is flexible and quick enough to harness the potential. Intel recently showcased a Medfield-powered phone running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) that can run Blu-ray quality video playback – which is great for reducing blur and sharpening colours – and has speedy browsing and app response.
It also captures ten eight-megapixel images at a rate of 15 per second, provides Internet telephony and improved 3D motion processing.
Despite these fairly compelling features the success of Medfield will probably rest on whether developers and entertainment providers are willing to harness the technology to improve, enhance and create new offerings.
In a market that is becoming increasingly fierce, it would make sense to do so, after all, the smallest edge can make the sharpest edge.
* This blog post is written by Softtalkmobile, and is sponsored by the Intel AppUp developer program, a single channel for distributing apps to multiple devices, multiple operating systems, and multiple app stores.
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