Intel CEO Unveils x86 Moorestown Smartphone

With all the hubbub surrounding its new app store, the fact that Intel is showing off the first phone based on its Moorestown platform went largely unnoticed.

Shown off by CEO Paul Otellini, the LG-manufactured GW990 is more of an MID or 'superphone' than it is a smartphone. Packing a 5-inch screen with 720p HD video playback, two cameras (one forward facing and one traditionally placed on the back of the device) the device runs on the Linux-based Moblin OS.

Describing the Moorestown platform, Otellini said, "It's smaller, faster and better than anything we've done before." Based on the x86 architecture, Moorestown is set to launch this year.

"Two years ago I showed a suite of futuristic, compute-intensive applications for handheld devices," Otellini said. "The computing was really done on a desktop PC behind the curtain because handhelds didn't have the processing capability yet. Two years later, the future is here."

While details about the phone are scant, Otellini says it will ship in the second half of 2010. The introduction of Intel chips to mobile phones comes as Atom chips begin to see some serious competition in the netbook space.

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