In one of the stranger proclamations we've seen related to Mobile World Congress this year, Intel and wireless carrier Orange have announced a new, exclusive, Intel-powered Android phone—with, bizarrely, Gigabyte as the manufacturer.
In what it claims is in celebration of the carrier's 10th year on the market, Orange says the phone will contain numerous locally relevant services like Orange TV, Daily Motion, Deezer, and Orange Wednesdays, none of which mean anything to us over here across the pond.
But here's what we do know: Orange says the phone is currently code-named Orange Santa Clara, and based on Intel's Medfield-powered smartphone reference design. The device measures 4.8 by 2.5 by 0.4 inches and weighs 4.1 ounces. It packs a Medfield-class Intel Atom Z2460 processor, and will run Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) instead of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).
While Gigabyte is manufacturing the phone—a company more known for its motherboards and video cards than anything else—Orange won't say what the real phone name is or when it will hit the market. It will be available to Orange customers in the UK and in France, and will support what Orange calls mobile HD voice as well as HD video.
It's also the first real deviation in design that we've seen from the Lenovo K800 shown at CES, which has a larger, 4.5-inch screen and will appear on a Chinese carrier.
Even so, this is significant news, if only because of Intel's involvement with the project. Intel has famously struggled to launch a smartphone over the past several years, as PCMag lead mobile analyst Sascha Segan pointed out on several occasions. This could finally be the real thing, though even that is anticlimactic if it doesn't make it over to the U.S.
Stay tuned for more details as we learn them.
Note: This story was updated with additional information about the phone manufacturer.
For more, see our complete Mobile World Congress coverage, plus Intel, the Chipmaker Who Cried Wolf.
For more from Jamie, follow him on Twitter: @jlendino.