Intel's Medfield Atom makes it debut in Lava's Xolo X900

CHIPMAKER Intel has chosen India as the first market to receive a Medfield Atom powered smartphone in Lava's Xolo X900. Intel and Indian handset maker Lava announced their intention to ship an Atom smartphone at Mobile World Congress in January. However Lenovo's K800 received all the attention, so Lava's Xolo X900 slipped under the radar to become the first shipping smartphone to feature Intel's Medfield Atom processor. Lava's Xolo X900 smartphone has a 1.6GHz Atom processor that supports Hyperthreading with the graphics core clocked to 400MHz. According to Intel, those specifications are good enough to power HD 1080p resolution video playback through the device's HDMI port, while the device's 8MP camera can take 10 pictures in under a second. Externally, the Lava Xolo X900 has a 4.03in LCD screen with the factory-encased battery giving it a claimed eight hours of talk time and five hours of 3G web browsing. Intel and Lava will be judged on how well battery life stacks up against ARM-based smartphones with 4in screens, because ARM has always claimed that the X86 chip architecture is not efficient enough for smartphones and tablets. One place where Lava did slip up is its decision to ship the Xolo X900 with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, however the firm said it will roll out an update to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich shortly, though it wouldn't be drawn on a specific date. Intel's decision to focus on Lava and Lenovo in the Indian and Chinese respectively is a good one. Although prestige markets such as the US and Europe sound good in a press release, the general thought among industry watchers is that China and India will be the largest smartphone growth markets, meaning that Intel has an opportunity to win new business rather than take market share from ARM.