Lenovo Helps China Mobile Enter the Mobile Phone Market with the OPhone

The “O” stands for “OMG, this will make Steve Jobs flip out!”

Hold on to your hats, techies! The copying clever naming techniques of this day and age have come up again with China Mobile’s new phone, the OPhone.

According to PCworld, Lenovo Mobile is planning on releasing the device next month. Obviously sporting 3G, it also uses China Mobile’s proprietary OS, OMS (based off of Google’s Android). “The name [is] for handsets with the China Mobile operating system…”, said a Lenovo Mobile rep. The 3G itself is actually TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access…whew!), a 3G standard that the government forced asked China Mobile to develop in-house. The phone will also use “China’s next-generation cellular standard.” We’re still not entirely sure what that actually means.

Lenovo have dubbed this phone model the O1 which will be the first to combine the new technology with an actual sleek presentation, something which has been holding the previous TD-SCDMA’s from selling off the China Mobile shelves like hot-cakes, and with China Unicom’s iPhone coming to China soon, it seems like just in time!

“The carrier will need time to level the playing field with its rivals, said Liu. The China Unicom and China Telecom networks use more established 3G standards, which gives them access to handsets popular abroad. China Unicom, for example, is in talks with Apple to offer the iPhone.”-PCworld

China Mobile also anticipating opening its Mobile Market application store, an emulation of Apple’s app store, in mid-August 2009. The store’s Web site on Sunday displayed a splash image with the words that translates basically into: “Mobile Market is coming, to be expected”

The download store will offer applications for a variety of platforms including OMS (Open Mobile System). The OS comes pre-installed with proprietary applications from China Mobile, such as its instant messaging client and mobile mail service.