Lenovo gave us a chance to check out their latest smartphone today at CES 2010. It’s Android-based with a complete facelift and hardly any of the original OS sticking out. I doubt they intended it to be, but it seems like a sort of interesting mix of webOS, iPhone, and Android features. I quite liked it.
Apologies for the noise in the video above, it was captured in an incredibly crowded area. But you get the gist. Just cruise through and check out the screens and animations.
In shape it’s quite pleasing, a little big, but with a good heft and solid feel. The screen is a gorgeous 3.7″ 800×480 OLED one, although I couldn’t confirm whether it’s the same that’s in the Nexus One. It’s got volume buttons on the left side, there, and a reprogrammable button on the right. It’s got a Pre-like dark area at the bottom that’s also touch-sensitive, and works as either a home button or for simple swiping gestures.
The OS is Android, and should be 2.0 at launch, though they declined to say when that might be. It’s completely skinned, though — Lenovo has it equipped with a sort of dual mode home screen, with one (the flower) being a contact jump-off point: you scroll through your contacts and then can pick a petal to message, call, or whatever. It’ll work if you can choose which contacts are included in that scrolling list, but if you have a couple hundred it’ll get confusing mighty fast. The other home screen is a series of widgets, they call it Widget Space, with stuff like weather, stocks, latest emails, that sort of thing.
It’s got the usual fixins: GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and all that, and it’s running on a Snapdragon processor, though I couldn’t seem to suss out the RAM or internal storage. We’ll hear more about that soon. The lady I spoke with had been using it as her phone for a good two months, so this is definitely final hardware apart from any radio bits to conform it to certain networks.
Forgot to rotate some of these shots; sorry about that. There’s also media playback and all that — there was a little screen for selecting streaming TV channels or what appeared to be some pre-prepared content, movie trailers and such. The apps “drawer” is now a series of pages, like iPhone apps. It’s a proven technique, though of course slightly derivative.
There’s a connector on the left side with a cover that attaches magnetically (Clever? Yes. Dangerous? Also yes.). It lets the Lephone connect to what is envisioned as a series of peripherals, the first you see here:
Yes, it’s a keyboard. I gave it a shot and it seemed to work just fine, although the key layout is tweaked in a slightly weird way. But it worked normally and actually closed up to form a large clamshell you could carry around.
From what I was told, the plan is to release the device in China first, then expand to the US. There were no carriers mentioned, and they were still working that out for China, so I wouldn’t even speculate just yet. But I was impressed by the phone and the complete little ecosystem they had going. I love me some Lenovo, and it looks like they know what they’re doing.
Here are the rest of the pictures: size comparison, other screens, and the usual glamour shots.
So pretty… :D Nexus One versus Lephone anyone?
Still, this is yet another interesting Android handset in a year of many interesting Android handsets. While it’s not planned for release outside of China just yet, it’s certainly a handset to keep an eye on from the Chinese company making baby steps into the mobile market. LePhone Details and leaked vids: http://bit.ly/lephone-details-updates
Sounds like french? Lol
I think you should check out Vkamobi to get more details of the latest mobile phones
UI seems nicer than the nexus one. The superphones are coming.
Design is seems well done. It seems like Lenovo actually hired graphic designers to layout the UI, instead of software engineers.
+1- nicest layout and set up so far- keyboard would take getting used to but the docking station idea is sharp idea
Looks good, not sure I could stand typing around that button in the middle though.
that peripheral keyboard is pretty neat.
multi touch is ‘nice’ to have :P
Man that keyboard is ugly as all hell.
nicht gut
LENOVO? like IBM Lenovo?
I think its prety cool. It looks very PIXIish to me but w/a larger screen. The keyboard thing is too much though I think I can fit my sunglasses in there.
She didnt get the “internal memory” question! darn it.
You asked just the right questions..I would’ve ask the same questions..I do that all the time with my friends phones..lol I even play like if I don’t know anything about the phone to get their real honest answers (sneaky)
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I think the magnetic docking station + aux battery is brilliant.
That said, the UX is fairly bad. Buttons are small, and key functionality isn’t easily accessible. Nobody is going to comfortably use the button + tilt to scroll. It would have been better to just add a scroll wheel on the side. IBM never succeeded at software design, and this attempt by Lenovo seems awkward.
It will be interesting to see how well this device fares in China. Chinese carriers don’t subsidize phone prices, and it has similar specs to the $550 Nexus One. Knock-off iPhones can be bought for $200 or less, and they’re the biggest mobile phone status symbol right now.
nice information
So this is basically a SIM only deal like we have in the UK. The carrier gets a MRC and does not have to subsidize the device. Seems to me that the carrier wins and the consumer has to pay more. Not exactly a revolution.
Nice but it looks like a PSP with the sides removed
Excellent, if more Android handset vendors put this kind of attention to the GUI I could get tempted to drop the iPhone
That is pretty good. A more “business-like” Android.
is that a Nexus One killer? haha.. pretty slick!
The keyboard looks great and neat way of attaching it. If you think about it, you dont have an off center keyboard and both thumbs could easily move a cursor. Still have d-pad for emulators. and if you don’t want a keyboard, dont attach it!
GUI response time looked really slow-a like a winmo delay.
One homescreen looked like an iphone ripoff. The other is a riff on the MyFaves system by TMobile.
Color choices are friendly and gender agnostic-unlike standard android off the shelf macho-black.
Beautiful phone, but all the other info out there is contradicting. I love Lenovo’s UI for this, and the design of the phone itself, and also the keyboard thing (I’ve never seen it for other Android phones).
But what about a U.S. launch? I think the woman implied, if not outright said, that there’ll be a U.S. launch in the future. But some sites are saying it won’t leave China, and others are saying it isn’t decided.
And the Android Market?? A lot of sites are claiming that it won’t have access to the market.
And last of all, the woman said this will run Android 2.0 at launch, but some are saying it’s currently running 2.1 (I so doubt this), and others saying 1.6. What’s the answer?? If anyone knows anything (especially the US launch thing), please reply! I’m really interested in this phone.
The lady said it would be running 2.0 at launch, but 2.0 will upgrade to 2.1. Definitely NOT 1.6. It was running like 1.912538254 in this one, clearly a developer version of 2.0.
My thumbs hurt just watchin the vid.. I’ve been patient about getting a smartphones so its nice to see real choices emerging, 2010 may be my yr…
I just love the innovation that is happening.
its just a phone. ill stay with my 1999 nokia phone
I haven’t seen a keyboard like that before… innovative. It looks like it would be pretty good for gaming.
As I know LePhone use android 1.6 .
And the keyboard does not come with the phone right now.
Pretty cool and i have seen the phone from Vkamovi on the net.
Bravo
Sorry, I’m too excited to control my fingers.
It’s Vkamobi not vkamovi.