The Xolo X900 may not be the prettiest smartphone to ever be released, and chances are it isn’t going to be sold in your part of the world, but it represents Intel’s first credible attempt at entering the mobile space. According to Brian Klug, who reviewed the X900 in exhaustive detail over at AnandTech, he believes:
“While the X900 doesn’t lead in battery life, it’s competitive with the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Nexus. The performance side is obviously even more competitive. Atom isn’t always industry leading in our tests, but the X900 is rarely more than a couple places away from the top.”
So now the question is how long until Intel refines their smartphone solution and when will the major players, companies like Apple, Samsung, HTC, Sony, build devices that use the x86 architecture? Warren East, the CEO of ARM, which is the company that licenses the intellectual property that damn near every chip vendor uses, recently spoke to Dow Jones. He says that by 2014 or 2015, Intel will have between 5% and 10% of the smartphone market. And when it comes to laptops, where Intel now owns almost the whole thing, ARM will have between 10% and 20% of that market during the same time frame.
What will the smartphone market look like in 2015 is another question all together. It also shouldn’t be forgotten that 2015 is only two and a half years away. That means the Galaxy S VI, Android 8.0 Marzipan (maybe?), iOS 9, and we’re not even going to begin to pretend like we know how chips from Qualcomm and Texas Instruments will look that far out into the future.
Do you think Warren is right, will Intel be in 1 out of every 10 smartphones in less than three years time? That’s incredibly generous coming from him. It’s one thing to listen to what Intel’s PR department has to say about mobile, it’s another thing to hear what the CEO of ARM has to say.