Orange bets on Intel Atom-powered 'Santa Clara'
Orange has revealed an Intel Atom-powered smartphone with a 4-inch display which the company promises will arrive with an "affordable" price tag in the summer.
The device, codenamed Santa Clara, was officially announced on Monday at Mobile World Congress 2012 (MWC). The handset is one of the first to be unveiled that uses the Intel Atom Medfield chip but Patrick Remy, vice president of devices at Orange, told ZDNet UK that it was a gamble that paid off.
"When we started working with them it was a bit of a bet, there was no such product on the market, but we were willing to make that bet because we had a relationship with them and we also wanted to bring innovation — it's not about bringing the same thing as just anybody else," Remy said.
Orange has no enterprise aspirations for the device and is firmly targeting the consumer sector with the device. Remy said that Orange aims to have 20 percent of the UK population with an Orange-branded smartphone by the end of 2012. Remy told ZDNet UK that at the end of 2010 that figure was 7 percent, rising to 15 percent by the close of 2011.
The device builds on the successful Orange San Francisco and Monte Carlo — also known as the ZTE Skate — handsets and is currently codenamed Santa Clara, which the company said will change before it launches in "three-to-four" months.
The handset has a 4-inch display, Intel Atom Z2460 processor, and will support HSPA+ connectivity in addition to the usual smartphone staples of Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth.
On the rear of the device there is an 8-megapixel camera that can take 10 pictures in less than one second in addition to capturing HD videos and photos, Remy said.
The Santa Clara is not the heaviest or thickest handset in the smartphone market either, weighing in at just 117g and measuring 123mm by 63mm by 9.99mm. For comparison, the iPhone 4S weighs 140g and measures 115.2mm by 58.6mm by 9.3mm.
Orange said the phone will arrive running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) but will be eligible to an upgrade to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) "shortly thereafter".
In addition to decently-specced hardware, Orange is pre-loading the phone with a number of Orange services, including Orange TV, Dailymotion, Orange Wednesdays, Your Orange and Orange Gestures.
"We firmly believe that all our customers should benefit from the smartphone revolution, and we remain committed to delivering innovative content and services across a wide range of devices to help customers stay connected and get more from their phone," Yves Maitre, senior vice president of mobile multimedia and devices at Orange, said in a statement.
Photo credit: Orange