Lenovo O1 OPhone Launches In China Next Month

Rob Jackson
15 years ago

ophone-001 The Lenovo OPhone has been an Android in-the-works for it seems like forever. Well… what seems like forever will end next month (according to PCWorld) as the phone is rumored to be launching in China under the name Lenovo O1 OPhone. A promotional website for the phone surely gives the impression of an imminent launch, but unfortunately Google Translate can’t convert flash based foreign language sites to English.

The concept of the OPhone is a good one because it piggybacks an already great product – the iPhone. But the naming conventions don’t quite seem to lineup. The iPhone is called an iPhone no matter what version it is, then distinguishing the difference between iPhone’s using the version name: iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S, etc…

On the other hand, Lenovo already seems to be calling this one phone many different things. For example, the web domain is at www.ophone001.com – this has two problems (1) everywhere else this phone is shown as just the O1 and here it has a double OO1… and (2) those are not letter O in the domain they are #0 in the domain, but everything else makes you think the OPhone would be letter O and number 1.

For example, tell me this doesn’t look like a letter O smack dab on the promo site landing page:

In some places it is shown as the OPhone O1 and on others as the O1 Ophone. And in other places the word OPhone is minimized completely as they push the name Lenovo Mobile O1, making you think it should only be called O1.

*sigh*

I’m stickler for details like this but when it comes down to it – the name doesn’t matter. What matters is that the phone kicks butt and works well. Will it? That is a completely different question.

As China Mobile prepares to launch the O1 Ophone, rival China Unicom is in talks with Apple to acquire the Apple iPhone. The two companies use different 3G technology, with China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA standard being less popular and offering less coverage than its competitor.

China Mobile hopes their Open Mobile Platform, the proprietary version of Android on which the O1 Ophone is based, attracts customers to their 3G network. Ultimately only time will tell if that happens. Personally, I think the Chinese love the concept of Android but the success of the OPhone will be determined by how open the Open Mobile System actually is.

If any Chinese-speaking Android’s want to weigh in on the matter, the comments, contact us form and tip us form are at your disposal!