Lenovo sells most of its smartphones in China but it hopes to break out internationally with a new line of handsets called the Vibe.
Lenovo announced the first member of the new lineup Wednesday, the Vibe X. The smartphone runs Android and has some premium features, including a 5-inch, high-definition screen that can display images at 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution.
The phone is 7 millimeters thick and weighs 121 grams. It has a 13-megapixel, rear-facing and 5-megapixel, front-facing camera, which is better than most smartphones.
The Vibe X has a quad-core MediaTek 1.5GHz processor, 16GB of flash storage and 2GB of RAM. It connects to 2G and 3G networks but does not support LTE, which could reduce its chances of coming to the U.S. market.
The phone will be available in China in October and in other markets starting in December. Pricing will be announced at a later date and will vary by region, said Keith Liu, director of launch marketing at Lenovo Business Group.
Lenovo’s best known smartphone is the K900, which runs on an Intel processor and has sold well in China.
Lenovo was the world’s third-largest smartphone vendor in the second quarter, according to a Canalys study released in August.
With Vibe, Lenovo hopes to grow in markets outside China, Liu said.
“We’re very new in the market outside China, and we’re very happy with our progress,” Liu said.
Lenovo also announced the S5000 tablet, which has a 7-inch screen and Google’s Android 4.2 operating system, the same as the Vibe X. The tablet has a 1280 x 800 pixel display, 1.6-megapixel front camera, 5-megapixel rear camera, 16GB of storage and 1GB of RAM.
It’s 8 millimeters thick and weighs 246 grams. The tablet runs on a quad-core MediaTek processor, and battery life is an estimated six hours watching video and eight hours surfing the Web.
Lenovo did not provide pricing or availability details for the tablet.
