Intel inside your smartphone: Medfield and Silvermont

What appear to be images of Motorola's first (but not last) handset with an Intel Medfield chipset and running Android 4.0 have shown up on Pocketnow. We first heard that Android was going to be optimized for Intel chips back in September, and got a look at Lenovo's K800 phone with a Medfield chipset in Las Vegas a month ago. Motorola's take on Medfield clearly sticks within its own design heritage, taking some cues from the Droid Razr and Droid 4, only with no capacitive buttons on the face, and in a lighter color than we're used to seeing on the company's devices. While details are slim, rumors say the phone's camera is going to be instant-on, and shoot 15 frames per second. It would be great if we could see the device at MWC in two weeks, but from these renders it's hard to know how close Motorola is to presenting something tangible.

We've spotted a couple of devices today with Intel's new Medfield chip, and this evening the company is finally coming clean about its forthcoming Atom processor, which is now confirmed to be coming to Lenovo and Motorola phones and tablets later this year. The single-core, 32nm processor, which is now called the Atom Z2460, is clocked at 1.6GHz and supports hyper-threading. That processor is then bundled with the Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX540 graphics, and Intel's 6540 HSPA+ modem inside the reference design. While Intel was showing an Android 4.0 tablet, the reference design is running Android 2.3, but battery life seems much improved over Moorestown: Intel says it gets six hours of video playback, 45 hours of music and 14 days of standby time on a charge.

However, the biggest question about Intel's Android devices has been app support. Back in September, Intel and Google announced a partnership to allow developers to compile apps for both ARM and x86 at the same time, but today Intel's detailing some more Android app magic. According to Intel's Dave Whalen, almost all apps in the Android Market will run on phones or tablets with Medfield. Even apps that haven't been optimized for Intel will work — here's Angry Birds. "Developers don't have to recompile them. We are trying to address the fragmentation issue," Whalen explained. That said, Intel says that a small percentage of apps won't work. Stay tuned for more from our Intel live blog.

Earlier today we saw Lenovo's Intel's Medfield-powered Android 4.0 tablet hanging around on the show floor, but Intel's just announced that Lenovo's also got an Atom-powered phone: the 4.5-inch Lenovo K800, coming Q2 with Android 4.0 on a 720p screen. It'll run the company's new Atom Z2460 chip, and has HSPA+ support with Intel's XMM 6260. We're hearing it might have Intel's Wireless Display technology as well. Lenovo plans to bring the Medfield phone to China during the first half of the year running Lenovo's LeOS skin. It will be the first x86 phone to be released, although there are no plans to bring it to other countries. Check out more Intel announcements in our live blog of the Intel press conference.

In terms of device performance, we experienced fluidity when flicking through the home screen and application page, and played Angry Birds and a device-optimized version of Modern Combat 2. The games ran smoothly with minimal visible lag, and the hardware itself felt a bit light in-hand. Mind you, though, that this prototype hardare is merely for demonstrating the company's new system-on-chip, and Intel's told us it plans on announcing a manufacturer partnership later today. Stay tuned!

An Intel and LG partnership isn't without precedent — but it also isn't without disappointment. Back in CES 2010, the LG GW990 was supposed to be one of the first MeeGo devices, but those plans were nixed. Although Android was mentioned, the Korea Times report also cited anonymous LG executives who said rather bluntly, "personally I doubt that LG Electronics will release phones on Android software based on any Intel platform," adding that it was more likely for LG to "push Intel reference mobiles but with huge subsidies from Intel for promotion" — possibly Tizen, the platform borne of MeeGo's ashes. We've reached out to Intel and LG and will let you know what we hear.

Intel's 32nm Medfield system-on-chip has been teased all year as the platform for the company's big leap into mobile devices, and now we finally have some real hands-on feedback to report about it. The MIT Technology Review team was allowed to have a brief play with a pair of Medfield prototypes running Android — a phone similar in size to the iPhone that was on Gingerbread and a tablet close to the iPad 2 in thickness running Ice Cream Sandwich — and came away impressed. Responsiveness, we're told, was pleasing on both devices, though it was the ICS-equipped tablet that invited the greatest praise in being evidently faster and smoother than its Honeycomb brethren. The phone was described as being "on a par" with the latest Android and iPhone handsets, while its Intel credentials were proven by it playing back "Blu-ray-quality" video.

Intel VP Stephen Smith is quoted as saying he expects to see the first Medfield-based Android devices announced in the first half of 2012, though he does also hint that some may be making an early appearance at CES 2012. His company's efforts to get into the smartphone game have been well documented, including a number of abortive starts, most notably with the Moorestown-equipped LG W990 two years ago, but Smith describes the current maturity of Medfield chips as production-grade, a level he says had never been reached before. So maybe, just maybe, this is one smartphone roadmap that Intel may be able to adhere to. Let's see what comes out of CES first.