France Telecom’s mobile unit Orange is set to release a smartphone in France and the UK backed by Intel’s latest Atom processor Z2460.
Designed by Intel and manufactured by Chinese firm Gigabyte, the smartphone, codenamed the Santa Clara, will be shipped during the summer.
Orange said it was the first operator in Europe to launch this first Intel-powered Orange smartphone which will feature a number of Orange services including Orange TV, Dailymotion, Deezer, Orange Wednesdays, Your Orange and Orange Gestures.
The Orange smartphone will run Android’s Gingerbread platform with a planned upgrade to Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich platform soon after, the company said.
The new smartphone, based on Intel’s smartphone reference design, will support HSPA+ with the Intel XMM 6260 Platform.
The phone weighing 117g will have a 4.03-inch display, with dimensions of 123mm x 63 x 9.99 and 16GB of memory.
IDC European Mobile Devices research manager Francisco Jeronimo said this announcement is a bold move from Orange.
"In today’s smartphone environment it is extremely difficult to differentiate without compromising costs," added Jeronimo.
