Turing Robotic Industries Partners With TCL For Its Appassionato Smartphone

Turing Robotic Industries (TRI) might not be the most popular phone maker right but it has now partnered with TCL Communication LTD for its 2017 flagship.

In 2016, TRI released the very first Turing Phone and its boasted ultra-security features such as built-in end-to-end encryption. Although the device was welcomed with more than 10,000 reservations before launch, it was delayed multiple times and even changed its operating system from Sailfish OS to Android.

Now, TRI has announced it is partnering with TCL, the same company that sells devices from different brands like Alcatel and BlackBerry. TCL will help in mass producing TRI’s flagship smartphone for 2017 called the Turing Phone Appassionato.

“We are excited to partner with TCL as they are the leaders in smartphone manufacturing. We have gathered invaluable feedback from owners of the first generation Turing Phone which motivated us to make necessary adjustments to improve our mobile service offerings,” TRI CEO Syl Chao said.

“The overall product experience we are developing is incredible, and we can't wait to share it with the world. This partnership with TCL Communication LTD is the next step in making that happen," Chao said.

TRI and TCL said the Appassionato will be built using liquidmorphium, an alloy that’s made up of zirconium, copper, aluminum, nickel and silver. The handset is also said to feature “amplified intelligence,” which is just another fancy term for artificial intelligence.

TRI’s AI will be called Sir Alan, which will function as a digital assistant and as a concierge service. This means that users should be able to do voice commands like on Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant to control the phone, while also allowing them to call real people for assistance.

As for specs, the Turing Phone Appassionato will come with a Snapdragon 820 processor and will run Android 7.1.1 at launch. The device will also be available in two variants: the $1,099 “elite” PX8 and the $1,599 “premium-luxury edition” GX8. The company didn’t say how the two models will differ, as pointed out by The Verge.

TRI says that it plans to start shipping the Appassionato on September 2017.