Intel, a name synonymous with PC processors, has joined hands with Karbonn mobiles to launch Intel-based Android smartphones in India.
Pardeep Jain, managing director, Karbonn Mobiles, said “Karbonn Mobiles will launch an Intel based Android smartphone by year end in India. Our research and development team has been working with Intel on this project for quite some time now.”
No price, tentative launch period or specifications of the device were unveiled.
In the past, Lava has joined hands with Intel to launch an Intel-based Android smartphone called the Lava Xolo X900. The device runs on an Intel Saltwell 1.6GHz single core CPU with Hyper-Threading, and has the PowerVR SGX540 GPU (400MHz). The device also boasts of 1GB of 32-bit dual channel LPDDR2 memory and Intel Atom Z2460 SoC. Also read our complete review of the Lava Xolo X900.
Lava and Karbonn are not the only manufacturers gunning for a smartphone powered by Intel and running Android. International manufacturers such as Lenovo and Motorola have also started work on smartphones powered by Intel Atom chips. Motorola is one international player that has announced that it will an Intel powered smartphone by the end of the year.
Intel is trying to make its mark in a market that is dominated by Qualcomm, a company well versed in making smartphone hardware. We have also seen smartphones in the recent past launch with Nvidia’s Tegra 3 processor. Samsung too has entered the smartphone hardware market with its own chipsets. Its latest offering, the Samsung Galaxy S III is powered by the Samsung Exynos 4212 quad core processor clocking at 1.4GHz. You can read our complete review of the Samsung Galaxy S III here.