ZUK’s press conference in China will start soon. Anyhow, we knew that the company will announce the Cyanogen-powered handset because ZUK confirmed that for us a while back. Well, Cyanogen has also jumped the gun and flat out confirmed what’s going to happen at today’s conference. Cyanogen has, via their official Google+ page released the following statement: ”Cyanogen is excited to be the OS for ZUK’s Z1 international version! The Chinese version of the Z1 became an instant success with more than 2 million pre-orders in one week. Be on the lookout for the Z1 in mid-October!”
As you all probably know, ZUK has already announced the Chinese variant of the ZUK Z1 smartphone which is very affordable, but is not running Cyanogen’s software. The already announced variant of the handset is actually powered by ZUK’s very own ZUI user interface. Well, ZUK will, during today’s conference, announce the Cyanogen-powered ZUK Z1 handset. Cyanogen has also confirmed that this device will be available in mid-October, so keep that in mind. Previous info we’ve received stated that the device will be powered by CyanogenMod 12.1, which seemed odd, but it’s possible that that’s going to happen. The other possibility is that ZUK Z1 will come with Cyanogen OS pre-installed. Either way, this handset is expected to sport the same specs as the already announced model.
The ZUK Z1 (international variant) is expected to sport a 5.5-inch 1080p (1920 x 1080) display, 3GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 quad-core SoC will fuel this smartphone, and a 4,100mAh battery will also be a part of the package. The 13-megapixel OIS shooter will be located on the back of this phone, and an 8-megapixel camera will be available up front. Android 5.1.1 Lollipop will come pre-installed on it, and either CM or Cyanogen OS will be installed on top of Google’s OS. The device will also sport a fingerprint scanner / physical home button below the display, and it will also ship with two SIM card slots and 4G LTE connectivity. The device will measure 155.7 x 77.3 x 8.9mm. You can also expect this thing to be rather affordable, the Chinese model costs the equivalent to $285.