With the aim to augment its challenge to Apple and Samsung, the Chinese electronics giant Lenovo is banking on its joint venture with Google to launch a smartphone with augmented reality and a new handset from subsidiary Motorola with a range of snap-on accessories.

The use of augmented reality (AR) – the ability to superimpose computer images onto the real world and have them interact with objects in the picture, would be available for users on mobile devices enabled by Google’s Project Tango which is a technology platform that helps augmented reality to run.

The first smartphone to be powered by Tango is Lenovo’s new PHAB2 Pro. The 6.4 inch device uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 652 processor and has a so-called “quad HD” screen. The device was unveiled earlier this week.

Lenovo’s camera has special depth-sensing hardware to allow it to use AR technology even though much of this is similar to many Android devices on the market. The main camera is 16 megapixels.

Lenovo has outlined the use of AR for a number of purposes. It can help students I learning where students can place dinosaurs or famous monuments in their classroom to explore them. The device could also be used for gaming where users had to shoot aliens that were running around a living room, the electronics firm showed. The technology and the device can also be used for mapping an indoor area allowing a user to walk around a museum so users can hold their phone up to a work of art and get lots of detailed information and also check out how furniture looks in your house before the user buys it.

Amid a slowing smartphone market that is only set to grow 3.1 percent this year, according to IDC, device-makers are pushing hard to differentiate their products. The growth last year was 10.5 percent.

Young Chinese players OPPO and Vivo had knocked out Lenovo out of the top five last year even as the later was the fourth-biggest smartphone vendor in the fourth-quarter of 2015. Lenovo is looking challenge the likes of Samsung, Apple and Huawei in the premium end of the market in addition to muscle back into the top five vendor list.

With giants such as Microsoft and Google all pushing forward with developing the technology, augmented reality is also seen as a big growth area for IT companies.

The PHAB2 Pro will start at $499 and will be available globally from September.

the Moto Z and Moto Z force – two new devices from Motorola, which is owned by Lenovo, were showed off  this week.

The Moto Z boasts a 5.5 inch Quad HD display with a 13 megapixel main camera and is made from “military aircraft-grade aluminium and stainless steel”. The Moto Z Force apparently has a screen that won’t crack or shatter if dropped and is all-metal.  However “modular” features – accessories that can snap on to the devices, is the main highlight of the phone.

Earlier this year South Korea’s LG released the G5 which also has attachable accessories.

(Adapted from CNBC)

Categories: Economy & Finance