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 benchmarks seriously. Alas, I didn't.)
If the results hold up for the upcoming Lenovo K800 smartphone (and Motorola's unannounced phones), Intel-based phones should offer stalwarts like the iPhone 4S and Samsung's Galaxy Nexus some headline-grabbing competition.
    "Although running what appears to be a stock Gingerbread browser, Intel's Medfield reference platform posts SunSpider performance better than any other smartphone we've tested--including the Galaxy Nexus running Ice Cream Sandwich," said Anandtech. And those results should be maintained for Atom on Ice Cream Sandwich.
     Oh, and it beats the iPhone 4S too in that benchmark.