Chinese tech company Lenonvo announced Monday that it is rolling out its augmented reality smartphone Phab 2 Pro in the Korean market on Tuesday.

The Phab 2 Pro is the world’s first smartphone to include Tango -- a new technology from Google that enables augmented reality gaming and utilities.

The technology allows users to place virtual objects over the real world through 3-D. For instance, a user can install an app to see how new furniture would look in their home, while raising virtual pets and playing 3-D augmented reality games.

“We have advanced the popularization of the augmented reality technology in partnership with Google,” said a Lenovo Korea chief Kang Yong-nam at the launch event held in Seoul.

“Although the AR technology is expected to be used for industrial or gaming purposes for the time being, we will continue to make efforts to expand the technology for ordinary users,” he added.

Lenovo said Tango has several key technologies for augmented reality such as motion tracking, depth perception and area learning.

Motion tracking is a technology allowing a device to understand its motion as it moves through an area. Depth perception allows a device to understand the shape of users’ surroundings. Area learning gives the device the ability to see and remember the key visual features of a physical space so it can recognize that area later.

The Phab 2 Pro sports camera sensors that are capable of capturing surroundings over 250,000 times per second. The phone comes with a 6.40-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1440 pixels by 2560 pixels. It is powered by 1.8GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor and it comes with 4GB of RAM.

The Tango-enabled smartphone is available in gold and grey through Gmarket at a price of 599,000 won ($519). It will be launched through Korea’s three major mobile carriers SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus. 

By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)