India’s Intex unveils octa-core smartphone prototype

Some Indian mobile phone makers are slowly but surely wiping out the image of being cheap, as in poor quality or low-spec. Instead they want to be well specced at affordable prices.

It’s a serious trend that could impact global brands like Samsung, Apple, and others competing in markets like India and China. The latest to make this move upmarket is India’s Intex.

A few days back, Intex surprised onlookers and competitors by coming out with a smartphone prototype that has an octa-core processor. Yes, eight cores. Intex’s upcoming phone will use MediaTek’s new MT6592 chipset. Once it launches, Intex might well be the first Indian homegrown phone-maker to use a powerful octa-core chip, something only done so far by global firms like Samsung and HTC on a few of its smartphone models.

Intex’s octa-core smartphone won’t hit shelves until January 2014 with pricing expected to be around Rs 20,000 ($320). According to Intex, it’ll have a six-inch HD IPS screen, be just 7mm thick, powered by the 1.7GHz MediaTek octa-core processor, and running on Android 4.2.2. There’ll be a choice of 16GB or 32GB storage. In theory, the chip should enable the phone to play back ultra HD 4k movie files, not that you could squeeze a full 4K movie onto a 32GB drive [1].

This will put huge pressure on the likes of Samsung and Apple – perhaps mostly on the Korean titan – to come out with such powerful yet affordable phones. The Samsung Galaxy S4 costs closer to Rs 40,000 in India, double the price of the new Intex phone.

Taiwan’s MediaTek packs a punch

MediaTek’s new ARM-based chip, which was previewed this week by the Taiwanese company, is the world’s first true octa-core mobile chip because all eight cores can run simultaneously where each core is capable of clock speeds up to 2GHz. That will likely beat even Samsung’s octa-core Exynos chip (whose cores cannot all run independently) in a speed test.

Intex will still find it hard to challenge compatriot phone-maker Micromax, which is India’s second biggest maker of Android phones (behind, but close to, Samsung).

Micromax has enlisted Hollywood star Huge Jackman as its brand ambassador, and will soon expand to the Russia market in its first move overseas. I guess this is just the start of Indian handset makers redefining themselves against global brands.