We're not sure how we missed this one, but it's better late than never -- turns out some lucky jerks in China were given a
Lenovo LePhone to play with back in mid-April, and the guys at
Sooyuu have just finished the fifth and final part of their lengthy review, just in time for the
May launch. We weren't expecting any changes since our last encounter
at CES, but apparently the 3.7-inch screen's now been upgraded from LCD to AMOLED, and like the
Palm Pre, the LePhone also sports a gesture area below the screen. Of course, there's also the never-before-seen packaging that we totally dig, not to mention the bundled goodies such as a leather case, a noise-isolation handsfree kit (but sans music and volume control), plus a magnetic dock adapter. As for software, the reviewer praises Lenovo's snappy, heavily customized
Android with its vast Chinese social networking service integration, music store, video apps, and an impressive Chinese turn-by-turn navigation suite. We almost want to adopt this baby, only to be let down by its 3.2-megapixel camera's mediocre quality, lack of flash, and inability to autofocus. Anyhow, you can be the final judge -- head over to
Sooyuu for plenty more pictures.
posted May 8th 2010 5:13PM
Sooyuu (1), (2), (3), (4), (5)
big mac is a big mac... but they call it LEbigMAC :)
bigmac is a bigmac ... but they call it LE BigMac
@momo71 hahaha, and what about a quarter pounder w/ cheese?
@hapadude royal?
BTW sorry for multiple messages, something went wrong with my IPhone, ops... will be censured this message??
Huge
No talk button
No end button
No built-in keyboard.
Lenovo phone = fail
@TrumanHW
yes there is a keyboard
maybe reading the linked article would help?
or at least browse the pictures...
Ok, seriously. Relax about the name, everyone. Currently, this is a China-only product. Thus it was given a Chinese name by a Chinese marketing team. As mentioned earlier, it translates to "happy phone" which, while goofy in western culture, makes perfect sense in Chinese culture.
IF and WHEN this product is released outside of China, it will most certainly be rebranded under a different name by the worldwide marketing team...
@iLessthan3Robots I doubt they'd change the phone's name -- I mean, hardly anyone complains about the company's name these days.
I'm impressed at how nice Lenovo made the whole interface look. The glassy effects aren't overdone, and I like how some things look "lit up" with that orange light. Hopefully someone can make a theme like this for the rest of the Android world
just looks like moto xt800
Ummmm... OK, so i think I know why lenovo didn't end up buying Palm, because HOLY COW did they ever Rape Palm's features for both the multitasking cards as well as the gesture area. Is there something that says because they are in China they can't be held liable for patent infringement? Because that is really what they look to be doing here.
Don't get me wrong, I admire the product and think it has huge promise but they need to be honest here about who's ideas they are using. I do like the keyboard to make it function like a small laptop idea. As well I like the look of the home screen flower. I just hope they are not trying to be underhanded about how they bring these wares to market.
Common, you guys, the LePhone is translation is faulty, blame Google, it is not Lenovo's fault!! The Chinese character used, though is also pronounced le4, should be pronounced as yue4 which means music. Google translated it incorrectly out of context!!!
Do the translation at (7th row):http://www.mandarintools.com/cgi-bin/wordlook.pl?word=yue4&searchtype=pinyin&where=whole&audio=on
Cut & paste the chinese character (select trad. or simple) and do the search again to see both meanings and pronunciation.
@ksloke No, Lenovo did call it "LePhone" at CES. Besides, "yue4" is the less common sound for that character.
@ksloke Less common in the sense that the character alone is usually associated with the other pronunciation, but is spoken the other way when paired with the character for "sound" to make "music."
@Richard Lai, not quite convinced about your less common argument, since this is a single character, not text. it could be anything Lenovo wants. Did Lenovo actually called it Le in CES, or is it again a translated news?
@ksloke That wasn't an argument -- Chinese is my mother tongue. And yes, I was there when Lenovo actually said "LePhone" multiple times at CES.
I actually like the way that looks. But I would like to know if it is running a skinned version of Android, or the Chinese Ophone fork of Android.
Wonder how they'll sell this elsewhere than China with all the patents infringements on Palm. Gesture area?
I find the comments amusing today, it shows how little people understand the mobile market and the fact that China alone makes up 42% of all mobile sales and they dont like expensive. Between india and China last I looked they made up for over 60% of mobile sales.
'We almost want to adopt this baby, only to be let down by its 3.2-megapixel camera's mediocre quality, lack of flash'
hasnt stopped engadget jizzing themselves over a product before :)
but i agree :P
this thing is beautiful, its just amazing, plus from videos ive seen of it it just works.
come on UK release, cos id buy one of these without a second thought!
Actually, to add onto my previous comment, on one of the articles it says ' but this design also feel very Hyun.'
its article 2, any idea what its supposed to mean?
cheers