Lenovo ditches Vibe Pure UI, will ship stock Android on all future phones

Motorola's focus on an uncluttered software experience allowed its phones to stand out, and its parent company Lenovo is following suit. The company has confirmed that it is abandoning its Vibe Pure UI skin in favor of stock Android, with the upcoming K8 Note the first phone to ship with Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box.

According to Anuj Sharma, Lenovo India's head of marketing for the mobile unit, the move was motivated by customer feedback. Speaking to Gadgets 360, Sharma said:

What we have done in last 11 months is we looked at what we had in terms of software perspective. We have been close to the consumers and we saw what they were asking for. There was a certain trend and we have now decided to cut the Vibe Pure UI off from our phones. So you will now get the stock Android which consumers have been asking for.There's no more Vibe UI going forward and we are moving to complete stock Android for all our future Lenovo phones. This is a huge transition for our business perspective.

Lenovo will still add a few enhancements to take advantage of Dolby Atmos and TheaterMax, two technologies it has pushed in recent times. Aside from that, however, its devices will run a clean version of Android without any customizations.

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Sharma talked about the difficulties involved in getting rid of its custom skin, and mentioned that going with stock Android will lead to faster updates:

It was a lengthy process to get done. As Lenovo had to align all markets where it sold Android devices. The cultural differences that came in where for example in China Android isn't a very popular choice when you compare it to custom skins. But this was something for which Lenovo pushed really hard. For the Indian market, the preference was with stock Android experience.The stock Android will also mean that it will be more efficiently updated to next Android OS. It also makes it easier to support for extended period of time.

It's certainly a welcome move from Lenovo, one that makes its budget devices that much more enticing. The K8 Note will be making its debut in India on August 9, so stay tuned for more.

Harish Jonnalagadda is Android Central's Senior Editor of Asia. In his current role, he oversees the site's coverage of Chinese phone brands, networking products, and AV gear. He has been testing phones for over a decade, and has extensive experience in mobile hardware and the global semiconductor industry. Contact him on Twitter at @chunkynerd.