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Intel CEO Paul Otellini hinted that Windows 8 tablet  production may not be that far off, while asserting that  Android  tablets won't be able to compete against the  iPad  until Ice Cream Sandwich becomes more widespread. In an earnings conference call  after the chip giant posted better than expected earnings today , Otellini said Android-based tablets don't have what it takes to compete against the iPad--yet. "Tablets are a little bit about hardware and an awful lot about software," he said. "Until you get to Ice Cream Sandwich, the offering isn't as powerful as with what's out there with Apple. As Ice Cream Sandwich tablets start shipping, you'll begin to see a little bit better receptivity...everything got a little bit better with ICS," he said, referring to Android 4.0. Then he made an interesting comment about Windows 8 tablets and production schedules. "The other part of that test [of competing with iPad] of course is t...

Liu Jun of Lenovo holding up the K800, Lenovo's first Intel-powered smartphone, at CES 2012. Intel's new chip for phones is surprising in many respects, but the biggest shocker is speed. The "Medfield" Atom Z2460 chip for smartphones,  announced at CES , handily beats some of the fastest phones on the market, review site Anandtech said in  this  post. Is this fast enough to be smartphone-market disruptive? Will battery life measure up? Only Lenovo and Motorola know for sure (Anandtech  thinks Medfield will be fine  on battery life). One thing is for certain, though: neither of those companies are signing up for Medfield out of pity, as Anand Shimpi points out. And--another shocker--the results that Anandtech cites are not that different from a bar-graph slide (below) that CEO Paul Otellini showed at a Credit Suisse Annual Technology Conference back in November. (I should add that I had somebody whispering in my ear before  CES  to take those be...

It's a rare  CES  for which most of the digital ink spilled is about computers and hardware, rather than giant televisions. But 2012 was just such a year, thanks to the never-ending drumbeat of Intel's ultrabook platform. Yes, ultrabooks again It seems like you couldn't walk more than a hundred steps across the velvety carpet of the CES show floor without running into a giant ULTRABOOK or WINDOWS 8 sign. The first official ultrabook-designated laptops (it's an Intel marketing term) arrived during the 2011 holiday season, but CES 2012 was a coming-out party for a host of new designs from nearly all manufacturers. Mooly Eden, the head of Intel's PC unit, shows off a concept ultrabook that has both a touch screen and keyboard at a press conference at CES. The laptops ranged from the diminutive (the  Acer Aspire S5 ) to the large and bold (the  HP Envy 14 Spectre ), and to the copycat (the MacBook-Air-alike  Dell XPS 13 ). And  14- and 15-inch models ,...

Liu Jun of Lenovo holding up the K800, Lenovo's first Intel-powered smartphone. Lenovo is gunning to get in early on the wave of Intel-powered smartphones. Just announced at Intel's  CES  keynote is the company's upcoming K800 smartphone. Shipping in "Q2 2012" the Atom-powered device features a 4.5-inch, multi-touch screen. It will be available first on China Unicom's network. Liu Jun of Lenovo said the phone represents a heavy investment by Lenovo into the mobile space, and that the hardware itself should be satisfying to customers looking for long battery life. We'll have more specs up on this upcoming phone soon. In the meantime, you can head over to  our live coverage  of the Intel keynote for more announcements.

Intel badly needs a way into the mobile business, and it may have found it through Motorola Mobility. Intel and Motorola today announced a multiyear, multidevice partnership in which Motorola would use Intel's processors to power its  Android  products. The two companies are planning to show off a device later this year, but they didn't specify whether it would be a  tablet  or a smartphone. A tie-up with Motorola is a major coup for Intel, which has struggled to get companies to use its processors for mobile devices. Its chips, which run on an architecture type known as x86, use more power and are more ideally suited to larger PCs and laptops. Virtually all mobile devices use ARM-based chips, which are more efficient and able to sleep longer without drawing as much power, and are better suited to smaller gadgets. As a result of those key differences, Intel has found few takers on the mobile end. Companies using ARM chips, such as Qualcomm and Tegra, have seen ...