It might not be a massive, quad-core mobile or a stylus-sporting Android tablet, but the humble Orange Santa Clara was still one of the more impressive mobiles I got to play with at this year's Mobile World Congress.
I've got a few hands-on snaps I'd like to share, so click through the photo gallery above to ogle this Intel-powered own-brand blower, and read on for the specs.
The Santa Clara looks a fair bit like the iPhone 4S, but whereas Apple's mobile is hewn from metal and glass, the Santa Clara is a bit more plastic-fantastic. That's not terrible news though, because it means Orange's new smart phone is very light -- just 117g compared to the 4S' 140g.
It's respectably slim at a tad under 1cm, but the display on show here is more than respectable, for what's shaping up to be an entry-level Android phone. This 4-inch display crams 600x1,024 pixels, which is an impressively high resolution.
I'm impressed with the clarity you get on icons and text, while photos and video will look good as well. The Santa Clara is unusual in that it's powered by an Intel Atom processor, and while it's hard to know how much grunt you'll really get without having run our benchmark tests, I'm optimistic based on my experience.
Games play smoothly, even when it appears that a lot of stuff is being chucked about on-screen. I suspect this will prove a capable Android phone for those who want multimedia chops, but haven't just dug up a vast fortune in pirate gold.
An 8-megapixel camera is another promising feature, and while you won't get the luxurious design you find on high-end smart phones, I think the Santa Clara could be a bit special.
Orange has told me the name will change when this phone is released in the summer, so stay tuned. In the meantime tell me what you reckon in the comments below, or over on our Facebook wall.
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