The Lava Xolo X900 is the first smartphone to ship with an Intel Atom processor. The Xolo X900 is available in India for about $420, and the Android handset features a low power 1.3 GHz Intel Atom Z2460 system-on-a-chip.

The phone is based on an Intel reference design, and upcoming phones from Orange and Lenovo are expected to look very similar.

AnandTech has posted a detailed review of the Xolo X900, and while it’s not necessarily the best Android smartphone money can buy, it’s apparently a competent performer with decent battery life — showing that Intel has figured out how to make its x86 chips competitive with the low power ARM-based processors found in most smartphones and many tablets.

Lava Xolo X900 smartphone

The phone has a 4 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, 1 GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and a 5 Whr battery. It features PowerVR  SGX 540 graphics clocked at 400 MHz. It’s similar in size and weight to leading Android phones from companies including Samsung, Motorola, and HTC.

While the phone didn’t come out top in many benchmarks, it did best every other handset in AnandTech’s browser-based tests. It also came out near the top in many general performance tests, and near the middle of the pack in graphics benchmarks.

Probably the most interesting thing is that the Xolo X900 is a middle-of-the-road device when it comes to battery life. Like most modern smartphones, if you want to surf the for days on end without recharging, you’re out of luck. But the phone didn’t exactly embarrass  Intel in AnandTech’s battery life tests involving web browsing over WiFi or 3G, talk time, or use as a WiFi Hotspot.

Intel-based Android phones to still face some challenges. Apps written using the Android NDK (Native Developers Kit) won’t run on x86 architecture unless they’re ported. The vast majority of Android apps will work, but AnandTech reports that Flash Player 10.3 runs but Flash 11 does not. Netflix also fails to run properly on the phone.

Still, it looks like Intel is ready to challenge ARM’s dominance in the smartphone space with its new low power chips.

via reddit

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3 replies on “Xolo X900 reviewed: Intel finally delivers a chip appropriate for smartphones”

  1. If this is an X86 chip, would this be able to run a standard desktop X86 OS?
    If those specs are right, that display is nearly 300 dpi.

    1.  Yes, the Z2460 Medfield is a x86 chip based on the Intel ATOM but it isn’t meant to run a desktop OS.  So you’ll mainly just see it with Android and perhaps Tizen.

      The GMA for example is based on Imagination SGX540, so any other OS you may consider would have to get drivers for that GMA.

      While also yes, the pixel density is pretty high at 296.71 PPI for a 4″ display.

      For running desktop OS, the upcoming Clover Trail would be a better bet, basically replacing Oak Trail and will likely be mainly released as Windows 8 tablets.

      Though for full range compatibility then wait till next years 22nm ATOM releases.  Since that’s when Intel is suppose to go back to its own GPU based GMA’s and can provide better all around driver support for both Linux and Windows.

      Though it remains to be seen whether that will extend all the way down to where chips like Medfield presently stand, but the higher end offerings should also start spreading into more mobile systems as well.

      Even for Intel’s main stream Core i-Series for example will adopt a more SoC like MCM packing with Haswell next year as well.  So everything is becoming more compact and they’re boosting power efficiency throughout the whole chip lineup.

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