INTEL UNVEILED a smartphone at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, marking its re-entry into the handset market after an absence of four years.

The move will spark a battle for market share with wireless chipmakers such as Qualcomm.

The world’s biggest semiconductor producer also announced an “app store” for netbooks, a category it has dominated but which is now under attack at the CES from “smartbooks” powered by the selfsame wireless rivals’ processors.

In a keynote speech, Paul Otellini, Intel chief executive, showed off a smartphone made by LG of Korea, using a new generation of lower-power Atom processors codenamed Moorestown.

It has a 3D interface, can display HD video and will go on sale in the second half of 2010.

Intel has faced the problem of reducing the power demands of its processors to match the capabilities of its wireless rivals, which make low-power chips based on the designs of the UK’s ARM.

In an interview, Mr Otellini said the new phone and chip showed that Intel had reached the point where it was competitive.

“And it’s going to get better. Over time, we should have the best silicon in terms of performance and power characteristics,” he said, referring to Intel’s advantage in miniaturisation.

It has reached circuit widths of 32 nanometres – billionths of a metre – this year, ahead of its rivals, and launched a new family of more than 25 “core” processors based on the smaller chips on Thursday.

Mr Otellini said that the smartphone would run on a 32nm chip and Intel would be reducing the size to 22nm.

Intel’s previous attempt to crack the handset market failed, and it sold its mobile phone chip business to the chipmaker Marvell in 2006.

The company has been unstoppable in netbooks, dominating the high-growth category with its Atom processor.

Mr Otellini revealed a beta version of an app store for netbooks, called the Intel AppUp Center, with support from Acer, Asus, Dell and Samsung netbook makers.

One step down from the netbook, the technology world is suddenly awash with a novel category of mobile devices seeking to grab the spotlight from a hugely anticipated product launch by Apple later this month.

Call it a “slate” or call it a “tablet”, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Dell, Motorola and Lenovo are among a barrage of companies showing off thin, touchscreen, multimedia devices at CES.

The sprawling show floor was flooded with prototype and concept devices in an array of sizes, as vendors test the waters of an as-yet-unproven market.

These wireless gadgets can stream video, download music, surf the web and play games, aiming to win over consumers by bridging the gap between smartphones and laptops.

They are jockeying for attention ahead of Apple’s widely expected announcement of a 10-11 inch tablet computer in late January, which could redefine the category much as the iPhone did for phones.

But the dominant theme of this year’s CES has been the arrival of 3D television, an advance that was merely a concept as recently as last year’s show.

Television manufacturers are banking on 3D TVs for their next sales boost, with sets capable of adding that extra visual dimension expected to hit store shelves in force by the middle of 2010.

But investors think it is still too early to put money on 3D. It took a decade for the cost of colour TVs to fall enough to win acceptance in the United States, noted Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Japan’s Ichiyoshi Investment Management.

And analysts also noted that many consumers have only just unboxed new high-definition television screens, making them unwilling to spend on upgrading again any time soon. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010/Reuters