Intel unveils Medfield phone and Tablet with Android support

Intel has revealed its latest Medfield smartphone and tablet reference designs, the path-laying hardware the chip company hopes will persuade manufacturers to adopt its x86 mobile chip rather than stick withARM.

The two devices the phone running Gingerbread and the tablet running Ice Cream Sandwich were demonstrated to MIT Technology Review, though only a render of the handset has been released. Still, initial impressions from Intel first SoC seem positive.

Unlike previous Intel chips, Medfield pulls all of the core processing tasks onto a single chip. This so-called System-on-Chip (SoC) design mimics the design strategy of ARM licensees like NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, which have been far more successful in getting their silicon in mobile devices than Intel has managed. Part of the benefit of a SoC design is battery frugality, something traditional Intel mobile processors have generally struggled with.