Lava Xolo X900 Review - The First Intel Medfield Phone
by Brian Klug on April 25, 2012 6:00 AM ESTDisplay
I mentioned earlier that it’s interesting that Qualcomm, Intel, and others have identified and gone with WSVGA (1024x600) for their reference designs at around 4“. In the case of the FFRD/X900, it’s 4.03” WSVGA TFT-LCD. That works out to 295 PPI and looks extremely attractive in person. I find it quite hard to pick out individual pixels; this is definitely a high PPI display that’s right up there with the best. In addition, the capacitive digitizer is excellent; I have no complaints about tracking accuracy at all, again just like you’d expect from a shipping device.
The X900 also goes pretty bright, at 375 nits, and has good contrast at around 800. I’m impressed with the display again just because up until recently seeing good LCDs outside of anything but the iPhone 4/4S has been a rarity. The HTC One X and Rezound are probably the only other devices in recent memory that surpass, but suffice it to say Intel/Lava haven’t skimped here.
As you can see from the gallery above, the display's performance is pretty good. CIE shows primaries and secondaries are close to where they should be, but not perfect (but way better than AMOLED insanity). Unfortunately color temperature is around 7500K constantly, and gamma is a bit sporadic. It’s worth dealing with those inconsistencies for that high PPI though.
Outdoor viewing angles are also pretty good, basically what we're used to for LCD displays outside in direct sunlight.
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tipoo - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
Looks like Krait still has a significant lead over Intels competitor, and it was shipping sooner. Intels doesn't have better CPU performance, GPU performance, or battery life, it's just ok at everything. I think their advantage will no doubt grow with 22nm, but for now we finally see Intel entering some stiff CPU competition, even if its for the low power draw segment.Lucian Armasu - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
That's the question: why would manufacturers care? Just because it's Intel? And why would they want to repeat the PC situation where they got an Intel lock-in, when there's much better competition with ARM makers, and they can get the chips for a much cheaper price (which Brian didn't take into account in this review).haar - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
<strong> But, can it play Crysis? </strong>. ROFLMAO! (sorry, first and last time i will use this... but really it is a perfect line imao)y2kBug - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
It seems that Intel put a lot efforts to make Android run on x86. Even if I think that this will not bring Intel any money in return; here is an idea how to make these efforts not to die in vain. Make this runtime work on Windows, so that we can run Android apps on the upcoming Windows 8 tablets. This will make upcoming Windows 8 tablets so much more useful from the very start.superPC - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
YouWave ( http://youwave.com/ ) and BlueStack ( http://bluestacks.com/ ) can already do that on windows 7 right now. BlueStack has shown that it can run android apps on windows 8 PC (it just doesn't have live tiles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKAOkpX7Q2E ).aegisofrime - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
Am I the only one who can't wait for an Android phone rocking ULV Haswell? That is gonna be such a beast. Modern in-order architecture + hopefully decent GPU.tipoo - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
Yeah, Atom is quite an old architecture now in chip terms, a redesign could bring Intel back up in a huge way. While I was disappointed by this SoC, bearing in mind how old it is and its competing against new designs like Krait, I guess they could do much much better with a real new Atom.Khato - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
Whereas my guess is that we'll be seeing conroe-class performance out of the silvermont cores in Medfield's successor. Hence why I couldn't help but chuckle at the second to last line in the review, "What I'm waiting for is that Conroe moment, but in a smartphone."tipoo - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
Conroe class performance would certainly bring these devices up to "good enough" territory. But current Atoms are only a fraction that performance still. We'll have to wait and see I guess.B3an - Thursday, April 26, 2012 - link
You're both idiots if you think Intel could get Conroe class or vastly better Atom performance out of 32 or 22nm.The whole reason Intel have used the 'old' Atom design in the first place is because it's simple and small, which means lower transistor count, smaller die, and lower power consumptions. If you honestly think they could have got Conroe level complexity or performance in a phone SoC with anywhere near acceptable power consumption and die size, even at 22nm, then you're both living in a fantasy universe.