Cyanogen OS powered Zuk Z1 heads to India, Yu exclusive comes to an end

So far, Micromax’s Yu sub-brand has had the benefit of Cyanogen OS exclusivity in India, but that is set to change very soon. Lenovo has unveiled that it is preparing to launch its own Android spin-off powered Zuk Z1 smartphone in India this month, after being given the go ahead by the Cyanogen team.

We know that Cyanogen has been working with additional manufacturers since at least December, when company CEO Kirt McMaster’s announced that we should expect six domestic and international vendors to launch Cyanogen OS powered phones in India throughout 2016.

It [the deal] was there before that’s what I was told by Cyanogen team. But the team now said its ok now. So we are going ahead with the launch. – Anuj Sharma, Head of Product Marketing at Lenovo

The Lenovo Zuk Z1 is powered by Cyanogen 12.1, which is based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. The Zuk Z1 was announced back in August 2015, featuring a 5.5-inch 1080p display, a Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB of RAM, and a 13 megapixel rear camera. Lenovo has also confirmed that the 64GB of internal memory variant will be arriving in India.

Lenovo hasn’t announced a price for the Z1 in India yet, but has said that it will be aggressively priced against similar phones on the market. The 64GB Zuk Z1 retails for CNY 1,799 in China, which works out to approximately Rs. 18,250, if you want a rough ballpark. The Zuk Z1 is scheduled to land in India in the second week of May.