Launch

Lenovo launched the LePhone in order to compete against Apple's iPhone and other smart phones. The LePhone is offered at a relatively low price point, about half the cost of an iPhone, and is customized for the Chinese market. The LePhone has benefited from strong support from Chinese mobile phone companies and content providers such as Baidu

Baidu

Baidu, Inc. , simply known as Baidu and incorporated on January 18, 2000, is a Chinese web services company headquartered in the Baidu Campus in Haidian District, Beijing, People's Republic of China....

, Alibaba, and Tencent.

Lenovo sold its mobile phone division in 2008 in order to focus on its personal computer business and then paid $200 million to buy it back in November of 2009. Lenovo re-acquired its mobile division in order to focus on mobile internet devices such as smart phones and tablet computers

Hardware and software

The LePhone uses a customized version of the Android

Android

An android is a robot or synthetic organism designed to look and act like a human, and with a body having a flesh-like resemblance. Although "android" is used almost universally to refer to both sexes, and those of no particular sex, "Android" technically refers to the male form, while "Gynoid" is...

 operating system produced by Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

.

Lenovo invested 100 million yuan in a fund dedicated to providing seed funding for mobile application development for its LeGarden online app store

App Store

The App Store is a digital application distribution platform for iOS developed and maintained by Apple Inc.The service allows users to browse and download applications from the iTunes Store that were developed with the iOS SDK or Mac SDK and published through Apple Inc.. Depending on the...

. As of 2010, LeGarden had more than 1,000 programs available for download to users of the LePhone. At the same time, LeGarden counted 2,774 individual developers and 542 developer companies as members.

Technical standards

The LePhone supports the GSM standard, China's indigenous TD-SCDMA

TD-SCDMA

Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access or UTRA/UMTS-TDD 1.28 Mcps Low Chip Rate , is an air interface found in UMTS mobile telecommunications networks in China as an alternative to W-CDMA. Together with TD-CDMA, it is also known as UMTS-TDD or IMT 2000 Time-Division .The term...

 3G

3G

3G or 3rd generation mobile telecommunications is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunication services fulfilling the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 specifications by the International Telecommunication Union...

standard used by China Mobile

China Mobile

China Mobile Limited is a Chinese state-owned telecommunication company that provides mobile voice and multimedia services through its nationwide mobile telecommunications network, the largest of its kind in the world...

, the WCDMA 3G standard used by China Unicom

China Unicom

China Unicom or China United Netcom Ltd , is a Chinese state-owned telecommunications operator in the People's Republic of China.-History:...

, and China Telecom

China Telecom

China Telecom Corp. Ltd. is a Chinese state-owned telecommunication company. It is the largest fixed line service and 3rd largest mobile telecommunication provider in the People's Republic of China.-Sectors:...

's CDMA 2000 network.