Motorola and Intel team up on Razr i

At an event in London this morning, Google’s recently-acquired handset business Motorola Mobility unveiled the first product of its partnership with processor manufacturer Intel, the Razr i. The firms are teaming up in a bid to revive Motorola’s handset business and put Intel on the smartphone map with the first fruits of their labour an aluminium-cased device with a 4.3in super AMOLED screen device. The Razr i runs the Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich OS and is powered by an Intel Atom 2GH processor.

According to Andrew Morley, general manager at Motorola Mobility for UK and Ireland, the firm focused on three elements to give it the competitive edge when developing the Intel-based Razr range: speed, power management and the Android OS.

The firms said at the press conference that the focus on speed is most apparent in the camera functionality – the feature that Motorola Mobility claims is the most used by smartphone owners, ahead of web browsing, search and video streaming. The handset can switch to camera mode in under a second, and can also take 10 shots in under one second.

The firms added that the Razr i also boasts a battery that is 40 per cent more powerful than that of the iPhone 4S, due to the Atom chip’s 32nm processor technology. The Ice Cream Sandwich OS will also be upgradeable to the Android Jelly Bean OS when the platform is launched.

The phone has NFC capability but does not support LTE connectivity.

Google will be hoping the device helps bring Motorola Mobility back to profitability. The firm has already announced measures including the axing of 4,000 staff—around 20 per cent of the handset business’s total headcount—and the decommissioning of 94 facilities. Google finalised its acquisition of the firm for $12.5bn earlier this year.

The Razr i will be launched in the UK, Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico in October 2012.