Ina Fried

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Lenovo Drops Intel for Qualcomm in Latest K-Series Phone

Intel has had a tough time convincing big-name phone makers to use its chips in their Android devices.

The Lenovo K900

The Lenovo K900

And the path to acceptance appears to be getting bumpier.

One of the company’s few well-known customers is Lenovo, which used Intel’s Atom chip to power its K900 smartphone. However, when it came time to create the successor device, known as Vibe Z (and also by the codename K910), Lenovo decided to use a chip from Qualcomm.

Intel acknowledged the change, but downplayed the notion that it meant an end to its place inside Lenovo phones.

“Intel’s relationship with Lenovo is longstanding and productive across a broad range of devices. Just recently, they were among our launch partners for Bay Trail,” Intel said in a statement to AllThingsD. “We’re taking a long-term view, and continue to work closely with Lenovo on current and future mobile products.”

In June, Lenovo started selling the Intel Atom-powered K900 in Thailand and Malaysia, bringing to eight the number of places the device has been sold.

Motorola is the only other prominent phone maker to include Intel chips, using them for the Razr i that shipped in Europe. The company’s chips have also been used sparingly in other devices, including a phone in India from Lava, from Megafon in Russia and a handset sold by French carrier Orange.

One of Intel’s challenges has been the lack of built-in support for a broad range of networks, including the fast LTE networks. The company has a standalone multimode LTE chip and has said it wants to continue integrating support for more functions into its processors.

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Nobody was excited about paying top dollar for a movie about WikiLeaks. A film about the origins of Pets.com would have done better.

— Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com comments on the dreadful opening weekend box office numbers for “The Fifth Estate.”