Lenovo's Cyanogen-based ZUK Z1 starts shipping internationally in October

Earlier this week, we told you that a certain CyanogenOS-based ZUK Z1 smartphone should soon be released in various markets around the world. If the ZUK name doesn't say anything to you it's because this is a brand new company established by Lenovo, and the Z1 is its very first smartphone.

Cyanogen today confirmed that the ZUK Z1 will be released internationally starting mid-October. Unfortunately, we still don't know what markets will get the phone. Moreover, there's no word on how much the ZUK Z1 will cost, though we should expect its price to be around $300 (unlocked), since the handset costs $285 in China. Speaking of China, Cyanogen says that the Z1 is very successful there, with over 2 million customers having pre-ordered the smartphone in one week.

Running Cyanogen OS 12.1 (based on Android Lollipop), the international ZUK Z1 has the same hardware as the Chinese version, which means it sports a 5.5-inch 1080p display, and comes with a fingerprint scanner embedded in its home button. The smartphone also features LTE connectivity, an 8 MP front-facing camera, a 13 MP rear camera, USB Type-C port, 3 GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage space, and a large 4100 mAh battery. Curiously, the ZUK Z1 is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor - which is still a powerful CPU, but it's pretty old. Perhaps this chipset was chosen in order to keep costs down.

What do you say, is the ZUK Z1 a smartphone that you'd consider buying?


source: Cyanogen (Google+)