Lenovo-backed ZUK makes its first international presence in Dubai

Dubai: The Lenovo-backed smartphone company — ZUK — rolled out its first handset known as Z1 in the Middle East to take on online-only brands such as Xiamoi, OnePlus One and Huawei Honor.

Lenovo not only sells phones under its own name but also under Motorola brand, which it acquired in October last year from Google for $2.91 billion. The company has invested heavily and owns 70 per cent stake in the China-based ZUK.

The Chinese smartphones companies are ruling the online sales as they can offer the devices at round 40 per cent less to the customers than through the retail channels.

Jin Chen, chief marketing officer at ZUK, told Gulf News that Dubai is the first international launch place outside China.

“Dubai is where the action is and we are confident of replicating the success we had in China. In China, we got more than two million pre-orders in the first week of the Z1 launch,” Chen said.

The phone was launched in China in August last year.

The 5.5-inch 4G device with 1920x1080 pixels resolution is powered by a quad-core 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chip set and coupled with 3GB of RAM and 64GB of storage capacity. It houses 13MP rear camera and 8MP front-facing camera. It has the same USB Type-C port as in Apple and has the biggest smartphone battery — 4,100mAh — in the market and comes equipped with a fingerprint sensor.

The device has an affordable price tag of Dh1,199.

The phone is powered by Cyanogen OS, an open-source operating system for smartphones and tablets based on Android OS. It offers features not found in official Android-based firmware and, at the same time, access Google’s apps such as Play Store, Mail, Maps, YouTube, etc.

Shenzhen-based OnePlus One and India’s MicroMax are the popular handset vendors using the open-source platform.

Chen said the devices will be available in Europe and South Asia markets soon.

“Our strategy is to make limited phones with high-end features at an affordable price point”.

The dual-SIM handset will get the updated and the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS next year.

The phone is available on eBay for $320.

Chen said that the phone will be available exclusively on Souq.com for one month and later at all retail outlets through distributor Comtel.