Intel shows Medfield Android prototype handset

Intel has continued to paw at the mobile phone market with a preview of Medfield, it's 32nm mobile processor.

But, as with Intel's previous mobile announcements, there was no serious partnership to talk of – only the promise that it was "sampling to customers."

Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president, Intel Ultra Mobility Group, showed a prototype Android phone packing the processor, but it was a tease.

However, it could be the Aava Mobile handset that has previously been rumoured.

Chandrasekher talked up the chipset's abilities on active, rather than idle power. "On active power, we are [as in x86] the most efficient architecture on the planet. That's what we do, work to make active power work better."

"It will have the longest use time," he promised of the new chip. "We'll have the same standby as everybody else claims.

"You're not buying a phone so you can leave it on idle. You're buying a phone so you can use it, browse the web and so forth.

What about MeeGo?

Renée James, senior vice president and general manager of Intel'sSoftware and Services Group also talked about support for different platforms on mobile.

"All operating environments run on Intel silicon. And nothing has changed." And what of MeeGo after the Microsoft announcement? "We're open source [advocates]. It isn't surprising that we would continue on with MeeGo on its own."

We're working with developers from the iPhone environment, from the Android environment to MeeGo. Anything we have running on x86 can [work across platforms]. We support Android… As Chrome [OS] comes available from Google we'll be supporting that."