14 DAY TRIAL // We’ve been telling you that Lenovo’s subsidiary ZUK has been in the process of prepping its first smartphone. The company has been leaking specs of the device consistently for the past weeks, so we mostly knew what to expect from it.
Today, the ZUK Z1 has been made official, so we can finally tell you what the phone is truly about. As you can see for yourselves in the gallery, the device looks quite sleek, as it arrives with a design reminiscent of the iPhone 6 and with a square-ish home button.
Moving on to the hardware department, we find that the smartphone arrives with a 5.5-inch full HD display with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, and surprisingly, last year’s Snapdragon 801 processor under the hood.
This is a bit odd, since earlier information suggested that ZUK would use the Snapdragon 810 to fuel the insights of its first flagship. But maybe the company got cold feet when confronted with all the reports saying the silicon was plagued with overheating issues.
The ZUK Z1 relies on a 2014 processor
The phone works with 3GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage out of the box and there’s no mention of any option for expanding memory via microSD card slot. On the imaging front, the ZUK Z1 features a 13MP rear camera from Sony (IMX214) with f/2.2 aperture and OIS (optical image stabilization), plus an 8MP front-facing OmniVision sensor for selfies.
The phone packs a fingerprint sensor embedded into the home button and features a USB Type-C 3.0 port and a 4,100 mAh battery.
In the connectivity department, the handset is equipped with dual-SIM support, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. The Z1 boasts a metal frame and should make it out on the Chinese market in two colors (white and gray) with a price tag of $285 / €258.
Contrary to earlier rumors, the phone does not run Cyanogen OS out of the box, but Android 5.1.1 Lollipop.
