Intel has yet to make a dent in the smartphone market, but the world's largest chipmaker is ready to take another swing with its Atom Z6 chips.
In addition to supporting smartphones, the Z6 platform -- previously codenamed "Moorsetown" -- can also be used in tablets and other handheld computing products. Supported operating systems include Android, Moblin and MeeGo, the OS jointly developed by Intel and Nokia. Mobile devices using these chips will arrive later this year.
Atom has dominated netbooks, but the current generation of chips isn't practical for phones because they consume too much power. Manufacturers have instead turned to ARM-based chips such as Qualcomm's 1 GHz Snapdragon processor found in current Android phones and the Samsung Cortex A8 processor used in Apple's iPhone.
The Z6 platform has made big cutbacks on power consumption compared to first-generation Atom chips. Smartphones running on Z6 are expected to last for 10 days on standby, two days playing music and four to five hours watching video. That's not mind-blowing compared to existing smartphones -- the iPhone gets double the video playback and longer standby time but less audio playback on a charge -- but it's a big change for Atom. Power use when in standby mode, for instance, is 1.75 percent of what last-gen Atom chips used, Wired reports.
Still, as I read through Intel's press release, I'm not sure how the chipmaking giant will pull manufacturers away from what they're using now (antitrust jokes aside). Intel touts 1080p video playback and 720p video recording, but most of the claims the company makes about computing performance are in comparison to the last Atom platform, rather than the competition.
I want to know why Intel deserves a spot in the smartphone and tablet game, and the company hasn't made a clear argument. Hopefully the upcoming, unnamed products Intel alludes to will speak for themselves.
