Flashback: A look back at Intel-powered smartphones and tablets

While ARM and Qualcomm have released some great mobile GPUs, we kind of wish Nvidia would start making smartphone chipsets again, or at least license GPU designs. AMD dipped its toes again, why shouldn’t Nvidia? At the moment we can only remember Nvidia powered phones. The GPU maker isn’t the only one dropping out of the race either, Texas Instruments was also once hugely popular.

And then there’s Intel. Still the dominant supplier of laptop, desktop, and server CPUs, Intel’s tenure as a chipset maker for mobile devices left no such legacy. However, it started well, and oddly enough, it started with ARM.

Intel licensed the ARMv5 instruction set and built on it to create XScale. The first chips were the PXA210 and PXA250, which ran at 200MHz and 400MHz respectively, and they were aimed at PDAs, Personal Digital Assistants (from today’s perspective we would call them “phoneless smartphones”).

Intel aimed for high-end PDAs, and by 2002 that meant pocket devices that could decode videos and MP3s and had features like wireless connectivity. Here are some interesting numbers about these chips:

• the PXA210 was $17, the PXA250 was $39.20 (in 2002 dollars)
• the PXA250 consumed 256 mW at 200 MHz and 411 mW at 300 MHz
• the PXA250 measured 17 x 17mm and came in a 256-pin ball grid array, the PXA210 was reduced to 225 pins (by using a 16-bit data bus instead of 32-bit).

The PXA250 powered devices like the Samsung i700. This had cellular connectivity (2G with GPRS data), a 240 x 320 pixel resistive touch display, a single VGA camera and an MMC card slot. It was running Windows PocketPC 2003 Phone Edition (which has very little to do with the later Windows Phone).

The Samsung i300 is an interesting one. Clearly not a PDA, this ran Windows Mobile 2003 SE Smartphone. It was a chunky thing, 20mm thick and had a lot of storage (for the time) – a 3GB microdrive.

The Samsung i750 was also phone-like, but unlike the i300, it had a touchscreen. A tiny 2.6-inch resistive touchscreen, but still. While the slider design made it possible to hide the keyboard, the front was adorned with a surprising array of hardware buttons. The i750 was even thicker at 22mm but didn’t have a micro drive. Instead it used one of those newfangled microSD cards for extra storage.

Samsung i700 • Samsung i300 • Samsung i750

Motorola had some odd designs from this era. The Motorola A1200 was fairly typical, with a transparent flip-up cover that protected (and prevented accidental touches from) the resistive touch display. This display was slightly smaller than that of the i750 at 2.4 inches.

The Motorola Q8 tracked BlackBerry demographics with an under-display hardware QWERTY (2.4-inch landscape). There were also flip phones like the A910 – not as sharp as a Razr, this one is interesting because it eschewed Microsoft hegemony and ran away with a Linux-based OS instead. The E680 was another example of a Linux phone.

Motorola A1200 • Motorola Q8 • Motorola A910 • Motorola E680

O2 XDA devices also belong on this list. The O2 XDA II, for example, had a “huge” 3.5-inch display (though still 240 x 320 pixels). There was also the i-mate PDA2, which was a pretty standard device. For a weird design, check out the tiny laptop, that was the Qtek 9000.

By the way, do these feel like they have something in common? Next to the XScale chipsets we mean. That’s right, they were all made by HTC in its ODM days.

O2 XDA II • i-mate PDA2 • Qtek 9000

BlackBerry also used XScale chips – they were in some of the most popular models like the BB Pearl 8100, Pearl Flip 8220, the Curve 8300 and more.

BlackBerry Pearl 8100 • BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 • BlackBerry Curve 8300

Palm also used XScale chips, which mainly ran the company’s PalmOS, although there were Windows Mobile devices like the Treo 500v.

Palm Centro • Palm Treo 500v • Palm Treo 650 • Palm Treo 680

In 2006, just four years after launch, XScale was sold to Marvell, putting an end to Intel’s ARM adventure.

Okay, now let’s talk about the phones you thought of when you started reading – those Android phones powered by Intel Atom chips.

Motorola was an early adopter with RAZR i in 2012. It ran on an Atom Z2460 with dual x86 CPU cores (2GHz, 32bit) and a PowerVR 544MP2 GPU.

Motorola RAZR and XT890

This was a fairly typical setup – Intel CPUs were designed for larger devices with active cooling, so reducing them to a smartphone form factor proved difficult. The company could only fit 2 CPU cores, but they were fast – they had some of the best single-core performance you could get back then.

But since there were only two of these, multi-core performance lagged behind quad-core ARM designs (the first of which also appeared in 2012). While Atoms did support hyperthreading, meaning each CPU could run two hardware threads simultaneously, it wasn’t as good as actually having twice as many cores.

Two years later, Asus used the same generation Atom chips in the very first Zenfones. These still used slightly improved chips from the Z2500 series from 2013 (though still 32 nm).

Asus Zenfone 4 (2014) • Asus Zenfone 5 A500CG (2014) • Asus Zenfone 6 A600CG (2014)

The next generation, the Atom Z3000 series, went up to quad-core CPUs, thanks in part to the move to a 22nm node. These were used in devices like the sleek Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe and the Zenfone Zoom ZX550. As discussed in a previous article, the Zoom had a 28-84mm periscope telephoto lens with a continuous zoom. This technology was lost for a few years but is making a comeback.

Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe ZE551ML • Asus Zenfone Zoom ZX550

Intel chips were also found in Asus’ transformative PadFone series – these could be plugged into a tablet dock if you wanted a bigger screen. There was also the confusingly named Fonepad 7, which was a tablet with phone functionality (unlike the PadFone, it couldn’t come to anything). However, the Transformer Pad could turn into an Android laptop.

Asus PadFone mini (Intel) • PadFone mini 4G (Intel) • Fonepad 7 (2014) • Transformer Pad TF103C

Dell also had transformative tablets like the Venue 10 7000. The thick cylindrical part on one side could be plugged into a keyboard dock. The smaller Venue 8 7000 was meant for standalone use, but it also had an unusual design with a large front speaker. These were interesting successors to traditional Venues 7 and 8.

Dell Venue 10 7000 • Dell Venue 8 7000 • Dell Venue 7 • Dell Venue 8

In 2015 Acer released the Predator 8 – as you can tell by its design, this was a gaming tablet. It was powered by the Atom x7-Z8700, which featured four CPU cores (no hyperthreading) and an Intel-designed GPU.

Much more casual were those like the Yoga Tablet 2 from Lenonvo, which was designed for multimedia consumption at home with its built-in kickstand and powerful speakers.

Acer Predator 8 • Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 10.1

The Nokia N1 from 2014 looks and is fairly normal on the surface, but what made it unusual was that it was made by Microsoft shortly after it acquired Nokia’s Devices & Services division. It also runs Android, although that’s a little less strange considering Microsoft released the first Android-powered Nokia devices (the Nokia X-series) a few months earlier.

Nokia N1

The combination of an Intel CPU and Microsoft Windows is so common that it is nicknamed Wintel. So where are the Intel-powered Windows tablets? Well, Microsoft tried to break free from its reliance on Intel (and x86 CPUs in general) by developing Windows RT running on ARM. This got us slates like the Nokia Lumia 2520.

There were also some Atom-powered Windows tablets, since Allview didn’t quite get into the whole “Windows on ARM” thing. One was a bit of a transformer too – it ran Windows 10, which made a lot more sense than trying to squeeze a laptop experience out of Android 4.4 (we’re looking, Asus). Allview made a KitKat tablet (the Viva i10G), although fortunately it didn’t go the Transformer route with it.

Allview Wi8G • Allview Wi10N PRO • Allview Viva i10G

There are many more nuclear powered tablets out there – from Xiaomi, Samsung, HP, Micromax and others.

Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 • Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 P5210 • HP Pro Slate 10 EE G1 • Micromax Canvas Tab P690

Here’s a device we didn’t expect would pick an Intel chip – the Tag Heuer Connected Modular 45. Yes, a smartwatch. An expensive one at that, $1,200/€1,100 for the 41mm model at launch. It had a titanium body and a ceramic bezel around the 1.39-inch AMOLED display (covered with sapphire crystal). And an Intel Atom Z3000 series chipset running Android Wear OS 2.1. Oh, by the way, the price we mentioned was just the starting point. Smack enough diamonds on this pup and it could easily grow to 6 digits.

Tag Heuer Connected Modular 45

The last device we want to mention is this beauty – the Nokia 9000 Communicator. It didn’t technically use an Intel chip, instead being powered by an AMD-made 486 running at 33MHz. You can read more about this communications powerhouse in a previous Flashback post.

Nokia 9000 Communicator (photo credit)

As you can see things dried up around 2014/2015. Attempts at mainstream acceptance had failed and only odd designs were relegated to using Intel chips. The company eventually stopped making Atom chips for smartphones and tablets, and manufacturers had moved on anyway.

Intel still had its modem division until it sold it to Apple in 2019. Apple itself stepped in from the Mac computers with the introduction of the Apple M chipsets.

Intel is now completely out of the mobile game, but has faced major problems in recent years (Foundry progress had stalled, giving TSMC the lead). Android still supports x86, although you probably won’t see this in action. Windows 11 can run Android apps, even those intended for ARM devices, but that’s made possible by emulation – Intel Bridge technology developed by (you guessed it) Intel.