We benchmark the Motorola RAZR i and its Intel Atom chipset, here are the results

Motorola just showcased its first Intel-powered smartphone – the Motorola RAZR i. It is powered by an Atom processor clocked at the impressive 2GHz, a first for a mobile device. But has Intel gotten itself into another gigahertz race without seeing much benefit?

We ran a few benchmarks on the RAZR i after the presentation, here’s what we found out.

The chipset is still a Mefield design – like the Orange Sand Diego or Lenovo K800 or ZTE Grand X IN use. It has a single Saltwell core built on a 32nm process – so, if you were expecting the dual-core Z2580 that Intel announced a while back or a new 22nm Silvermont core, you’d be disappointed.

Single-threaded performance is nothing to write home about, at least that’s what the synthetic benchmarks tell us. The phone is fast and responsive when you use it, but the Atom scores lower than the dual-core Krait processor in the RAZR M.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Motorola DROID RAZR M
  264
• Sony Xperia T
  285
• Sony Xperia V
  286
• Sony Xperia TX
  289
• Motorola Atrix HD
  294
• HTC One S
  306
• HTC One X
  330
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  344
• Motorola RAZR MAXX
  402
• Motorola RAZR i
  534

Linpack

Higher is better

• HTC One S
  210
• Motorola DROID RAZR M
  188.9
• Motorola Atrix HD
  186.4
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  177.1
• HTC One X
  160.9
• Motorola RAZR i
  108.5
• Motorola RAZR MAXX
  51.2

Quadrant

Higher is better

• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  5952
• Sony Xperia TX
  5793
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5365
• Meizu MX 4-core
  5170
• Motorola DROID RAZR M
  5126
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  4814
• Motorola Atrix HD
  4178
• Motorola RAZR i
  4125

The JavaScript performance, however, is absolutely stunning. It’s just about as fast as we’ve seen a mobile device perform on SunSpider, with only Note II beating it (and that’s in no small part due to its Jelly Bean OS). We suspect the tables will turn when the Motorola RAZR i gets updated to Jelly Bean (the JB browser is quite a bit faster than the ICS one). General browser performance is excellent as BrowserMark shows, with the RAZR i lags behind only Samsung’s quad-core designs.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  972
• Motorola RAZR i
  1043
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1447
• HTC One X
  1468
• Motorola Atrix HD
  1647
• HTC One S
  1708
• Motorola DROID RAZR M
  1861
• Motorola RAZR MAXX
  2136

BrowserMark

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  185034
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  169811
• HTC One X
  140270
• Motorola RAZR i
  129562
• Motorola DROID RAZR M
  113620
• Motorola Atrix HD
  107535
• HTC One S
  98435
• Motorola RAZR MAXX
  92653

The chipset kept the same GPU as well, meaning the Motorola RAZR i has an old PowerVR SGX540 to rely on. It does perform slightly better than the same GPU on the TI OMAP chipset of the RAZR MAXX thanks to the 32nm process, which allows for higher clock speed, but the gain is minimal and can’t come anywhere near the performance of more modern GPUs.

NenaMark 2

Higher is better

• Motorola DROID RAZR M
  61.1
• HTC One S
  60.5
• Sony Xperia T
  60
• Sony Xperia TX
  60
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  58.8
• Sony Xperia V
  58.8
• Motorola Atrix HD
  56.7
• HTC One X
  56.6
• Motorola RAZR i
  38.9
• Motorola RAZR MAXX
  36.9

In the end, we’d probably go for a Motorola RAZR M over the RAZR i – it has the same design and excellent build quality, but the Snapdragon S4 chipset brings high-end performance, while Intel’s Atom still has some way to go.