Intel Z6xx smart-phone processor prototypes: Moorestown massacre

Fancy a smart phone that's powerful enough to play a 1080p HD movie while you're video conferencing, and power-smart enough to last 10 days on standby? Intel says that fantasy phone is on its way, with the launch of its Moorestown Z6xx processor. We saw some prototype phones and tablets running the chip earlier today.

Intel chips have dominated laptops and netbooks, but it's overshadowed by ARM in the smart-phone stakes. With Moorestown, Intel has cut the power consumption of its previous netbook chips by an amp-sipping 50 times, as well as upping the processing power and adding extra features such as image processing.

It hopes the new chip will put a PC in your pocket, because the Intel architecture supports the programs that have already been written for a full-sized computer running on an Intel chip. Intel demonstrated a working port of classic shooter Quake 3 to show off how easy this could be -- although it says Moorestown devices will initially be powered by Google's Android operating system or its own MeeGo OS, which is in the works with Nokia.

Intel predicts phones with the chip will be landing on shelves in the second half of this year. 

Sadly, one phone that won't be taking a trip to Moorestown is the massive LG GW990. Phone Arena reports LG says the giant phone tablet with the 122mm (4.8-inch) screen won't be sold in shops... ever.

Click 'Continue' to see more of the reference models Intel showed us, including the OpenPeak tablet.