RAZR i, believe: does Intel's first real smartphone measure up?

[KeystoneRegional]

 

 

The Verge - "Whether you think it's a post-PC or a PC-plus era, Intel's motivation for scaling down its processors for use in smaller devices is clear. The past few years have seen the mobile and tablet market grow and grow, and Intel has been very slow to react. Finally, after countless failures, Intel proved that it could power a smartphone earlier this year with the release of the Orange San Diego. The phone was one of the world’s first to feature an Intel x86 chip, a cousin to the silicon that sits inside your laptop or desktop PC. It put to rest longstanding worries about performance and battery life on the x86 platform, but was thoroughly dull and, despite largely passing our extensive app-compatibility test, was unable to run quite a few high-profile games. Our review of the San Diego found Intel capable, but still in need of a truly competitive smartphone.

Last month, at a relatively low-key press event in London, Motorola and Intel co-announced the RAZR i, an x86 version of the mid-range Motorola Razr M, the first ofnumerous collaborations between the two companies. The RAZR i represents a unique opportunity: we finally have two virtually identical devices, one powered by a "traditional" ARM processor, and the other featuring an Intel chip. Can Intel’s effort hold its own, and has the company found its perfect partner in Motorola?"

Source Link /// Read More: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/4/3447984/motorola-razr-i-review-intel-smartphone

[CenSin]

From a technical point of view, I'm not sure I want to see x86 and it's descendants extended to more markets. It's an architecture that produces results (largely because of the money thrown into research and development), but it carries a lot of old cruft/useless baggage. I'd much rather see Intel throw as much money into developing an ARM chip (which it had tried briefly before).

[realizm]

I agree they should consider a x64 variant of the engine they will employ in this new smartphone. Problem is that I think Intel decided not adopt that architecture because of the compatibility issues they may face with 32 bit applications to be installed on the OS which will power the new smartphone to be introduced in full force. But that is just an educated guess. I'll read into this some more.

[KeystoneRegional]

I personally don't mind if it's 32-bit or 64-bit, I just need the smartphone to work as intended and expected right out of the box, I am a geek still, but don't get me wrong, it's better to have a working device than have a device you have to tweak and diagnose constantly to get it working in preferable order. But, I hope the Razr i works as good as my Intel Notebook PC's and Desktop PC's, in fact if it lives up to what I expected, I might be getting an Android device after all!