ZUK Mobile was a Chinese

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

company founded in May 2015, and a subsidiary of

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, Personal computer, personal computers, ...

. It was headquartered in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. The brand ceased operations in 2017, when Lenovo shifted its smartphone focus to

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

History

ZUK Mobile was founded on May 28, 2015, as a spin off of

business.

Yang Yuanqing Yang Yuanqing (, born 12 November 1964) is a Chinese business executive and philanthropist who is the current chairman and CEO of Lenovo. Early life and education Yang was born on 12 November 1964 to parents both educated as surgeons. He spent ...

, CEO of

, said that investing in ZUK Mobile "is one of the Chinese tech giant's major steps in its business transformation in the Internet era". Furthermore, he said that the company is an independent brand different from Lenovo's previous subsidiary brands. Less than two months later, ZUK Mobile entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with Cyanogen Inc. to base its products' Android distribution upon a variant of the popular custom ROM

CyanogenMod CyanogenMod ( ; CM) is a discontinued open-source operating system for mobile devices, based on the Android mobile platform. It was developed as free and open-source software based on the official releases of Android by Google, with added origi ...

and use its trademarks outside of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The company unveiled its first device, the ZUK Z1 in

on August 11, 2015. Following its release, the company received over 1.5 million pre-orders within two days in

mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...

. On April 27, 2017, Lenovo announced that the ZUK brand would cease operations, and Lenovo would instead focus on Motorola smartphones. The official website of ZUK shut down in July 2017, and now redirects to the Motorola website.

Products

Z1

The Z1 is ZUK's "flagship" smartphone, unveiled in August 2015. It has a 5.5-inch 1080p display, 64 GB internal storage, a 13 MP rear camera, a 4,100 mAh battery, a

Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...

Snapdragon ''Antirrhinum'' is a genus of plants commonly known as dragon flowers, snapdragons and dog flower because of the flowers' fancied resemblance to the face of a dragon that opens and closes its mouth when laterally squeezed. They are native to r ...

801 CPU, 3 GB RAM, a

USB-C USB-C (properly known as USB Type-C) is a 24-pin USB connector system with a rotationally symmetrical connector. The designation C refers only to the connector's physical configuration or form factor and should not be confused with the conne ...

port for charging and audio, and a fingerprint reader. The international version of the Z1 runs Cyanogen OS 12.1, based on Android 5.1.1 "Lollipop". The Z1 is sold in China with ZUK's own ZUI version of Android based on Android 5.1 "Lollipop". In mainland

, the ZUK Z1 costs CNY 1,799 (US$284) while an international version is expected to cost around

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

300 or

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...

280.

Z2 PRO

It was announced by the CEO of ZUK that a new device, the Z2, would be released in 2016. The new Z2 details were unveiled on 21 April 2016. The Z2, named the Z2 'Pro' has a 5.2" screen, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, Adreno 530 GPU, 13 Megapixel OIS camera and comes in two models, 64 GB internal storage/4 GB RAM or 128 GB internal storage/6 GB RAM. The battery capacity is 3100MAh. The phone has health sensor and a fingerprint scanner and the higher spec device is priced 2,699 Yuan($416).

Z2 Plus

It was launched after the launched of Z2 Pro. Zuk Z2 has 5.0 inch Full HD display. It is powered by 3500 mAh battery and has 2.15 GHz quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor. The camera at the back is of 13 MP and the front camera is of 8 MP.It has 4 GB RAM along with 64 GB internal storage. It runs on Android Marshmallow 6.0 out of box and now it has been upgraded from Android Marshmallow 6.0 to Oreo 8.0.

Z2 Rio Edition

It is a version of the Zuk Z2 with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage.

ZUI

ZUI is ZUK's own version of the Android 5.1.1 system. It is only released in China, presently on the ZUK Z1 mobile phone. It, alike many other Chinese variants of Android, contains no app drawer. It does utilise widgets, but does not have

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...

app store installed by default.

Transparent concept phone

ZUK displayed a transparent smartphone prototype at the Z1's launch. The device on display had nearly no bezel and was completely transparent when powered off.

References

External links

ZUK Mobile Global

ZUK Mobile China

ZUK Mobile Canada
{{Electronics industry in China Chinese brands Chinese companies established in 2015 Electronics companies of China Lenovo Manufacturing companies based in Beijing Mobile phone companies of China Mobile phone manufacturers Technology companies disestablished in 2017 Technology companies established in 2015 Chinese companies disestablished in 2017