Lenovo has been hanging out in the bottom end of the Android market ever since they gave up on the ThinkPad Tablet, but it looks like they're finally ready to ship some high-end hardware. Enter the Lenovo Vibe Z, a 5.5-inch smartphone with an LTE radio - a first in the company's Android lineup. As usual, Lenovo doesn't seem interested in western markets for this phone. According to the press release, it will go on sale in February in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the Philippines for $549.

The Vibe Z is high-end compared to Lenovo's current phones, with a 1080p LCD screen, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of memory, "up to" 16GB of storage, and a 13MP rear camera with an impressive F1.8 lens. It's slim, too, at 7.9mm thin despite a 3000mAh battery. The software is a heavily-skinned version of Android 4.3, and though Lenovo didn't mention any official Google apps, the presence of the Google Play Store in the press render speaks for itself. The Qualcomm radio inside will let the Vibe Z operate on GSM and UMTS networks up to the 2100mhz band.

The specs and looks of the phone are impressive, and I'd surely like to see this thing in person, but Lenovo still seems wary of the contentious phone markets in Europe and the Americas. Perhaps if the Vibe Z catches on with the growing LTE customer base in Asia and the Middle East, we'll see more phones on our shores.

The company also announced three lower-end phones for Lenovo's primary Asian markets, the S930, S650, and A859. The S930 and S650 share similar 8.7mm frames, MediaTek 1.3Ghz quad-core processors, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage and a MicroSD card slot, an 8MP rear camera, Android 4.2, and dual SIM card slots. The S930 has a 6-inch 720p screen and will go for $319, while the S650 has a smaller 4.7-inch screen with a resolution of 960x540. It will cost just $229. The A859 is a cheaper variant of the same hardware, with a 5-inch 720p screen and a thicker 9.2mm body for $219. All three phones should be on sale now.

Update: Lenovo has posted an quick promotional video of the Vibe Z on YouTube. Enjoy.