Orange / Intel Santa Clara launch liveblog

[Guest PaulOBrien]

Orange are holding a launch event today for their new own-branded device with Intel, codenamed the 'Santa Clara'. As well as finding out the shipping product name, we expect to get some quality hands on with the device!

We'll be liveblogging from 9:30am BST today. Got questions? Post them in the liveblog now!

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[Guest hecatae]

any news on the mAh of the battery?

[Guest Matchstick]

From the looks of it the battery is non-removable (like the Lava Xolo X900) but is it also lacking a MicroSD slot ?

I'll be interested to see the battery size as well as the X900's battery life with a 5.4whr battery was described as average, so 14 days standby time sounds a little "optimistic" without a serious increase in capacity.

[Guest MrPuddington]

I fail to see why anybody would want to buy this.

1. Everybody is waiting for an ARMv7 version of the ZTE Blade, which was announced about a year ago.

2. Intel is not a good choice: it tends to use too much power, run to hot, and it is not compatible with native apps, which require an ARM cpu (many of the games).

3. Android itself may have some issues on Intel, and certainly modding is going to be more difficult.

4. ICS on October? Jelly Bean should be out by then.

5. 200 pounds - for a phone that seems inferior to for example the Huawei ascent.

As you can see I think this is a bad technical decision, and it will not convince customers.

[Guest razzmataz1478]

1. I wouldn't hold your breath

2. They're experienced and I think that the CPU won't be bad. There is a built in ARM translator so it can run ARM-native apps.

3. Intel and Orange have worked with google to try and make it seamless

4. True, but ICS was out months ago and HTC, SE devices have only just started getting it

5. Better CPU, better screen, looks like a better battery. Though £150-£170 would be a more tempting price.

[Guest Simon O]

MrPuddington: I don't see what this has to do with waiting for a new version of the ZTE Blade. Completely different manufacturer and Orange have no control over what ZTE produce.

The CPU in these phones are low power and low temperature. Intel desktop CPUs of course use a lot of power and generate a lot of heat but the processors inside phones are very very different.

Android has absolutely no problems running on x86 architecture. Android has supported x86 for a few years now although until recently no devices used it officially. Unofficial x86 versions of Android have existed for a while now.

If an application or game use native code then this will be translated from ARM to x86 with very minimal loss of performance. In fact you won't even notice it.

£200 for a phone that has far higher specifications that the Huawei Ascend G300 is a good deal. Of course not everyone will think so.

[Guest Simon O]

any news on the mAh of the battery?

1460mAh same as the other Medfield devices as they are all based on the same reference platform.

[Guest Matchstick]

If they can genuinely get 14 days standby, or even half of that, on a single charge I can definitely see my wife being interested in one of these but with only a 1460mAh battery I won't be holding my breath.

That said I'll definitely be interested in seeing what Motorola can do with the Medfield platform later in the year.

[Guest Simon O]

The 14 days standby would be possible as long as you do not have any applications that need a constant internet connection or poll for updates. So if you don't use Facebook, Twitter and don't have your mail application set to constantly look for new mail then the standby would be possible.

I can't see 14 days being possible with normal smartphone usage. 2 days max.

[Guest pyncmeele]

[Guest pyncmeele]