MORRISVILLE – Lenovo rolled out today in China its latest device the tech giant hopes will bring new life to its struggling smartphone business – a truly smartphone since it packs artificial intelligence.
Having just laid off more employees at its Motorola business in Chicago, Lenovo turned its attention to the media event Tuesday morning to announce the S5 along with some other devices.
The company has been hyping the S5, which packs multiple features and according to Chinese media sells for under $200, for weeks. However, the Lenovo US website as of this morning contained no information about the phone.
In addition to a fingerprint scanner for security, the S5 also includes facial recognition.
Website Gadgets 360 in Japan notes the AI is linked to what Lenovo calls a “smart engine on the handset.”
Leading the media blitz has been Lenovo Group Vice President Change Cheng, who had served as CEO of Lenovo’s ZUK Mobile. He’s the exec put in charge of turning around the mobile phone business, which has faltered since Lenovo acquired Motorola Mobility in 2014 for some $3 billion from Google.
Lenovo exec touts new S5 on China social media site Weibo
“According to an internal mail, Chang has been entrusted with the responsibility of Lenovo and Motorola brand’s product planning management in China along with China Mobile Software ecosystem development,” Gizmo China recently reported. “He will report to Qiao Jian, President of Lenovo MBG [mobile business group] China.”
The new phone represents Lenovo’s latest attempt to generate some spark in mobile, from a continuing offering of new brands to all sorts of add-ons to Motorola phones called “mods.”
The S5 is packed with features behind AI.
As Gizmo China reports: “The handset features a 5.65-inch display that offers an aspect ratio of 18:9 and Full HD+ resolution of 2160 x 1080 pixels. It is fueled by 2 GHz octa-core processor. Its 32 GB and 64 GB storage models respectively feature 3 GB and 4 GB of RAM. It is running on Android 8.0 Oreo.” It also “has a dual camera setup on its rear side and one of its sensors is of 8-megapixel. The front panel houses an 8-megapixel selfie camera.”
The phone comes encased in a metallic body built through “nano-injection molding followed by grinding, sandblasting, diamond trimming and anodizing,” Gizmo China adds.
