Advertisement

Lenovo LePhone Android device announced for China (update: hands-on video!)

Lenovo has just announced the LePhone for the Chinese WCDMA market, available in May this year. Notable features include a vibrant 3.7-inch 800x480 capacitive touchscreen (not OLED, sadly), 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, 3.5mm headphone jack, a camera on both the front and back (3 megapixels for the latter), A-GPS, WiFi (but no WAPI, strangely), removable battery and a proprietary 9-pin dock connector. Lovers of physical keyboards may be interested in the optional external keyboard -- the clamshell-style snap-on is very similar to the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid's. On the software front the LePhone will have Android 1.6 (yeah, we know) which is somewhat enhanced with accelerometer-based gesture control (read: tilting) and, dare we say, a few design cues from the iPhone OS -- the voice-call interface shown in the presentation video is a perfect example. There will also be a carrier-specific application store which Lenovo couldn't demo at the event. Similarly, details on prices, carriers and plans of international launch were missing. Presentation and hands-on videos after the break.