Lenovo Smartphone S2 Android smartphone hands-on from CES 2012

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Lenovo Smartphone S2

Lenovo Smartphone S2

Lenovo Smartphone S2

Lenovo Smartphone S2

Lenovo Smartphone S2

Lenovo Smartphone S2

Earlier this week, Lenovo took the wraps off of its Smartphone S2, the international version of the LePhone S2 that was already released in China. We managed to spend a few moments with the device and its custom user interface.

For all intents and purposes, the Smartphone S2 is a humdrum mid-range Android smartphone. It has a 3.8-inch, WVGA display and is powered by a single-core 1.4GHz processor. Lenovo calls the hardware design "round arc."

More interesting than the hardware might be the build of Android 2.3 Gingerbread with Lenovo's custom user interface that is running on the S2. The interface utilizes gestures for swiping and borrows heavily from webOS and Windows Phone for its multitasking style.

In general I found the user interface to be interesting, but not necessarily intuitive. It almost seems as if Lenovo made it different just for the sake of being different - not for any usability reasons. Still, I found that I was able to navigate the device fairly easily. It was a little refreshing to be using an Android device that made use of navigational gestures beyond simple swiping left and write on the home screen.

Lenovo says it will launch the S2 in global markets in the near future, but it has not announced a price at this time.