Orange San Diego review: Intel comes to smartphones

App Compatibility

Intel recently said that 95 percent of the content in Google Play would work with x86. While it comes close to that figure in some categories, my overall experience wasn’t quite so trouble-free.

In terms of apps, the San Diego should play nicely with almost everything you throw at it. While time constraints obviously prevented me from physically testing all the apps on the store, I personally launched every single one of the top 100 free apps and games available to me on Google Play, and 50 more for good measure. I found no cases (apart from Netflix, which encountered errors during the install process) where an app was supposed to run, but wouldn’t. Ookla’s popular Speed Test app did highlight one interesting issue: it ran in a WVGA (480 x 800) window with black borders around it, rather than taking up the full screen This seems to be an issue with the app scaling to the San Diego’s unusual display resolution, rather than compatibility with x86.

Of course, just because all the apps that Google, Intel and Orange allowed me to download worked, that doesn’t mean that all the apps are available to begin with.

To confirm if Intel’s 95 percent claim was true, I visited Google’s top 100 charts and checked to see how many of the apps would run on the San Diego. First up was the Top 100 Paid apps and games chart, of which 83 were compatible. All of the incompatible items were games, with the exception of a pair of ICS-only launchers. Next up was the Top 100 Free apps and games chart, of which 6 were incompatible — all games again, aside from the aforementioned BBC iPlayer app. The results match my personal experience — games are the real issue here. Of the Top 100 Paid games, only 72 were compatible, and from the Free Games chart, 93.

I went through the same process with the Galaxy S II, Xperia P, Droid RAZR, and Galaxy S III to see what the results would look like in comparison to the San Diego.

As you can see, the San Diego isn’t as far behind the curve as you might have expected. When I bought my Galaxy S II on launch day there were a lot of incompatible games, but after a year the situation is much improved. This is a normal issue with some devices that have new or unique technology inside, but for the time being it can definitely be an annoyance.

For instance, both Netflix and the BBC iPlayer app seem to be incompatible, and wouldn’t work no matter what I tried. As LoveFilm, the UK’s other major movie streaming site, doesn’t have an Android streaming app you’ll be stuck sideloading or renting through Google Play if you want to watch movies on the go. I’m sure this is a matter that can be fixed, but this is the type of issue that Intel needs to address before it even considers releasing a major device.

For me, the lack of video apps wasn’t a huge issue, and Facebook, IMDb, Instagram, Kindle, Readability, Skype, Spotify, SwiftKey X, TuneIn Radio, Tweetdeck, and YouTube all ran without issue. That’s pretty much my standard software selection for any phone. I also tried out popular alternatives to my favorite apps, including Instapaper, Pocket, Viber, Rdio, Deezer, Twitter, and Swype and ran into no problems.

The main cause of frustration for me personally was gaming, with big-name titles like Shadowgun, Samurai II, Temple Run, Plants Vs. Zombies, and Minecraft: Pocket Edition all on the incompatible list. That’s not to say that you can’t game on the San Diego — the vast majority of games will work, and graphically intensive games like Dead Space and Mass Effect: Infiltrator ran with only minor framerate dips, much the same as they did on my neighboring Galaxy Nexus.

That’s not to excuse Intel, though; it definitely needs to be aggressive in its attempts to improve the situation. The average user shouldn’t have to care about which processor is powering their device. While it’s true that incompatible apps (again, Netflix aside) won’t show up in Google Play on the device itself, people know what Temple Run is, and they won’t understand why their brand-new smartphone doesn’t have it. Intel just about passes the app-compatibility test on its first attempt, but it needs to improve, and improve fast.

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