QiKU a collaboration between Coolpad and Qihoo 360 has launched its ‘360 QiKU’ flagship smartphone in Beijing. This is the first time the phone maker has adopted “360” in its title, the tech channel of NetEase portal reports on Thursday.
The change in name degrades “QiKU” from a company name to a phone model name. Rumor has it Qihoo 360 CEO Zhou Hongyi wants to ouster “Coolpad” from the QiKU partnership. This has yet to be confirmed.
QiKU was founded in January 2015 as a joint venture between Chinese security software giant Qihoo 360 and leading Chinese smartphone maker Coolpad. “QiKU” literally means “surprise and cool” in Chinese, and comes from the company names of “Qihu” and “Coolpad”. The smartphone uses software from Qihoo 360 and hardware from Coolpad, and run Qihoo 360’s Android-derived operating system.
The newly released smartphone is priced at RMB 2999 (USD 455) and will hit the market on January 19. It comes with a high resolution 6.00-inch touchscreen display featuring a pixel density 1.33 times higher than the iPhone 6s plus. It has a PPI of 490 pixels per inch.
The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 808 processor, comes with 4GB of RAM, and packs 16GB of storage which is able to be expanded to 128GB via a microSD card.
The phone packs a fingerprint scanner that allows users to match phone numbers with certain fingerprint images. Users can make, take and record calls by scanning their fingerprints.
Qihoo 360 CEO Zhou Hongyi said that the phone still needs improvement but hopes it can surpass the iPhone.