The launching of the phone by Lenovo marks further progress by Intel to break into the smartphone processor market, which has currently been dominated by ARM chips. In April, Intel's first smartphone became available in India, built from handset manufacturer Lava International. Motorola has also said it plans to use Intel chips in its smartphones.

The LePhone K800 is now available for sale in the country, going for a price of 3,299 yuan (US$520) without a contract. The K800, which was earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, uses one of Intel's latest chips, code-named Medfield, and promises to bring long battery life and fast processing speeds to the phone.

The LePhone K800 is built with a 1.6GHz processor, along with a 4.5-inch touchscreen that can play video at 720p resolution. The smartphone uses Android 2.3.7, has 16GB of internal storage, and features a rear-facing 8 megapixel camera, and a front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera.

The LePhone K800 is arriving in China as the country has become the largest smartphone market by shipments, according to research firms. In April, Intel China chairman Sean Maloney said the company in the Chinese market for tablets and smartphones.

Intel's new Medfield chip is competitive with ARM chips in terms of power consumption and processing speeds, said Teck Zhung Wong, an analyst with research firm IDC. But the LePhone K800's price may put it out of reach of most Chinese consumers, many of whom are buying smartphones at a price of 1500 yuan or lower.