Lenovo shows off LePhone Android hybrid handset

On Monday, Lenovo published pictures of its LePhone handset, the manufacturer's first Android smartphone.

The LePhone, which is currently scheduled for release only in China, was demonstrated at CES in Las Vegas last week.

The handset runs on Qualcomm's 1GHz Snapdragon processor, the same chipset that powers Google's Nexus One Android phone.

The most unusual feature of the LePhone is its ability to be used in two form factors.

The handset can run as a pure touchscreen device, or it can be clipped into a cradle that includes a physical keyboard.

The docking cradle also contains an additional battery and speaker for the device.

The hybrid nature of the LePhone is similar to that of the manufacturer's IdeaPad U1 notebook, also unveiled at CES, which can be used as a touchscreen tablet or as a standard clamshell laptop.

Although the LePhone uses the same processor as the Nexus One, it runs an older version of Android — 1.6 rather than 2.1.

However, Lenovo has created its own user interface skin to run on top of the more standard Android. This skin is called OPhone and, much like HTC's Sense skin, it unifies the different ways of calling or messaging a contact into a single screen.

Lenovo's first Android handset is 12mm thick and has a 3.7-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels.

It has cameras on the front and back, for video-conferencing purposes. This is a rare feature in Android devices.

The smartphone also has a 3.5mm headphone jack and a removable battery.