It seems that many manufactures want to jump on the smartphone bandwagon especially when it comes to the rapidly expanding Android platform, and today we have news of the UK exclusive Orange Santa Clara Intel Android smartphone.

The handset was first revealed back in February at the Mobile World Congress, and the device will join the number of other Intel Medfield powered devices that includes the Lenovo K800 we reported about recently. According to Android Central the handset that has been given the codename of Santa Clara will be showcased this coming Thursday, May 31st, by Orange UK.

It will become the first Intel powered Android device to land in the UK market, and it seems that the Santa Clara name will change at the devices launch in the country. The device will be Orange branded and will likely follow other handsets from the carrier that are generally low end, low cost handsets usually picked up by customers opting for pay-as-you-go price plans.

Currently there is no information regarding pricing or release dates, but this should become clearer at the showcase for the device on Thursday. The handset is listed on the Orange website and the specifications point to a mid-range at best smartphone with its 1.6Ghz Intel Atom Z2460 processor. The Santa Clara has a 4-inch WVGA screen, HSPA+, 16GB of internal memory, and an eight megapixel rear camera.

Orange list the handset as running the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, but hopefully it will soon get treated to the Android Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade, as looking at the specs of the device should be more than capable of running the software, but as recent news is anything to go by this won’t be guaranteed.

Do you like the look of the Santa Clara?