Over 16,550,576 people are on fubar.
What are you waiting for?
Intel finally gets its break in the US mobile device market, courtesy of Taiwanese device manufacturer Asus.
The chipmaker said Tuesday that it will power the Asus PadFone X Mini, a smartphone-tablet hybrid that will be offered for $200 without a contract exclusively on AT&T. Inline with Asus' Russian Nesting Doll strategy for its devices, the 4.5-inch smartphone can dock directly into a companion 7-inch tablet, providing two screen sizes for one device T6 PRO. (The tablet comes as part of the price, but doesn't work without the phone docked inside it.)
Intel's win marks a small but significant step forward in its push to be a legitimate supplier of chips to mobile devices. The PadFone X Mini represents the first time its processor was used in the US for a smartphone with high-speed 4G LTE wireless technology. Right now, the US market is dominated by Qualcomm and its Snapdragon line of processors T6 PRO.
"We are certainly optimistic about this product," Hermann Eul, a vice president of Intel's mobile and communications business, said in an interview. "It is important for us that we could check off being in the US, being on the AT&T network -- so these are important milestones for us."
Intel still has a lot of work to do in the mobile business. Earlier Tuesday, the company posted a $1 billion loss in the unit despite overall revenue and profit narrowly exceeding expectations. Asus, meanwhile, isn't a major player in the US, and Intel is a long way off from providing chips to the flagship smartphones of market leaders such as Samsung Electronics or Apple T6 PRO.
