Every year Intel talks the talk about being able to put their chips inside devices as tiny as a smartphone, but this year they’re walking the walk with the help of Lenovo. The Chinese personal computer maker may not be known for smartphones on this side of the pond, but in their home country they’re quite popular. They’ve just announced the K800 and say that it’ll ship in Q2 of this year running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. No word as to the price, which is something we’re going to be keeping a close eye on to see how well Intel’s best efforts compete with the likes of a Samsung Galaxy Nexus or Apple iPhone 4S. Spec wise you’re looking at a 1.6 GHz Intel Z2460, an untold amount of RAM, 4.5 inch 720p resolution display, 8 megapixel camera, and Intel’s own XMM 6260 radio chipset that supports 21 Mbps HSPA+, quadband EDGE, and pentaband 3G.
The big question is will this thing ever come out in America? That’s a tough one to answer. It’s a bit telling that Lenovo has yet to launch a smartphone in the states. Motorla may save the day however since they were the second company to announce plans to ship devices using Intel’s new chip. The official word from Motorola is that an Intel based Motorola smartphone will ship during the second half of this year, which is just about as vague as you can get. That could mean July, but it can also mean September.
Why should you even care about Intel smartphones anyway? For one thing they’re freaking fast. Earlier today we saw benchmarks come out that show Intel kicking everyone’s ass left and right. We don’t yet know what type of battery life to expect, and we’re sadly going to have to wait until we get our hands on retail hardware before knowing whether to be excited about Intel’s latest efforts or to be disappointed.