Here’s what Lenovo’s ‘One UI’ looks like on a Chinese Moto Z

Lenovo/Motorola have finally launched the new Moto Z here in the United States, but that’s not the only place we’ll see it go up for sale. After a brief period of exclusivity at Verizon Wireless, the phone will go on sale in markets around the world as a GSM unlocked device. One of those markets includes China, but there the Moto Z will be getting some major changes in the software department.

As previously rumored, Lenovo has opted to place a skin on top of Android exclusively for the Chinese market. Other markets around the world will get the same classic near-Stock software that Motorola was always famous for.

In this image we see the very basics of this new UI on its homescreen. Right away we can spot some similarities to the software layer that the US Moto Z has out of the box, namely the time/weather widget in the center of the screen. We can also spot stock navigation keys and the Moto app for controlling features such as Moto Display and more. After that, we can see that all the icons adopt a mask that gives them all the same shape, something we see quite often on Chinese smartphones. The Google Play Store also isn’t seen, rather with what appears to be a Chinese app store on the homescreen. As is also the case with most Chinese smartphones, there’s also no app drawer.

This new image contradicts the previous rumors that mentioned the software concept we spotted back at Lenovo’s Tech World 2016. That UI shared similar elements, but had a different overall look that I’d still love to see from Motorola/Lenovo at some point or another. Again, we probably won’t ever see this type of UI debut in countries where Motorola’s near-stock software was praised, especially here in the US.