We aren’t quite sure what is going on here: you spot, Lenovo’s been cosying as much as Android for its smartphones and tablets all this time, so we were a little bit surprised when certainly one of its product managers posted some photos of a Windows Phone-powered handset (even Engadget makes an appearance ). More interestingly, this mysterious phone looks similar to the imminent Lenovo LePhone S2, which incorporates a heavily customized Android 2.3.4, 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 chip, 480 x 800 display, eight-megapixel camera (with 720p recording) and a smaller plus lighter body than its predecessor . PCPOP’s done a short lived preview of the S2 Android if you are curious.
However the bigger story this is that if Lenovo is indeed developing a Windows Phone Mango device for the Chinese market (and keep in mind that Lenovo has yet to market its smartphones outside China), then this S2 variant may be the first of its kind that gets the blessing from the Chinese authorities. At this time Windows Phone has a good Facebook and Twitter integration, either one of that are unfortunately banned by the good Firewall; and additionally, even the Windows Phone Marketplace had fallen victim to the system for unknown reasons back in August . After all , Windows Phone’s China penetration may be only a matter of time anyway, but it will become interesting to determine what compromises Microsoft may have made to maintain the authorities happy — Nokia would certainly need this to maintain a decent shape in China.
Nonetheless, given the average hardware compatibility between both mobile OSes, there’s also a great opportunity that this strange device is merely the work of a few curious engineers at Lenovo — you understand, very like the Android-powered Nokia prototype spotted in June. If that’s indeed the fact then let our bubbles burst.
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