0 Lava's Intel-based Xolo X900 tested

That statement has summarized the opinion of any number of 
engineers and business analysts ever since Intel launched Atom back in 2008. The technically oriented have tended to emphasize the larger die and increased power consumption of the x86 instruction set, while business pundits have claimed Intel would fail by refusing to price its parts competitively and accept the lower margins that resulted.






Intel, meanwhile, went ahead and built a smartphone anyway. That device, the Xolo X900, is what we’re reviewing today. It won’t ship to North America — Intel partnered with Indian manufacturer Lava International to bring the product to that country — but this is no prototype or proof-of-concept vehicle.

The Lava Xolo (pronounced ZOH-low) X900 is a 3G (HSPA+) device with a 4-inch 1024×600 screen, 1GB of RAM, a 1.6GHz Atom Z2460 CPU, and an SGX540 GPU clocked at 400MHz. Total available storage is 16GB. It runs Gingerbread (Android 2.3.7) with an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich scheduled to drop later this year. The screen is Corning’s Gorilla Glass and the device itself weighs 127 grams, or about 10% less than the iPhone 4S.

The Xolo X900 sports both a front (1.3MP) and rear (8MP) camera, an LED flash, a dedicated camera button, and micro USB / micro HDMI ports. The rear camera is capable of recording in 1080p and supports 1080p H.264 Main Profile playback at 30 fps. The phone’s specs are solid all the way around; easily on par with other shipping Android products.

One of the things I like most about the Xolo is its rubberized back. The oleophobic coating on the iPhone 4/4S may keep nasty grease from building up, but it makes the phone notoriously difficult to hold. The Xolo has an oleophobic coating on the front half (where it matters), and a no-nonsense surface on the back.

 

Here is the X900 side-by-side with the iPhone 4S. The X900 is slightly larger than the iPhone 4S on all three dimensions, thanks in part to its larger screen. At 1024×600, the Xolo’s screen has a pixel density of about 297 PPI. That’s slightly below the iPhone 4S (330 PPI), but well within the range of what’s considered a “Retina Display.”