Chinese company Step Terminal launched the STEPX Neo on October 13, 2026, its first large-model-native AI agent smartphone, with a full-stack price of 3,999 yuan (around US$550-560).
What happened?
The STEPX Neo Pioneer Edition comes with a Snapdragon 8 series chip, 16 GB RAM and 256 GB storage, in Carbon Black and Silicon Silver. It runs Step AOS 1.0, an agent-native OS built from scratch, with the personal agent 阶跃Amoo integrated. It includes Step Studio, a tool to create apps, games and agents via natural language, plus 12 months of STEPX Token Plan with 10 billion tokens per month.
The “retro-futuristic” design has a transparent back with mechanical elements and AI history easter eggs (such as “42”, Turing code and Transformer). There is a rear MiniLED matrix display for agent status, six microphones with a low-power audio chip (only 1.2% battery in 24h) and Whisper 1.0 algorithm for recognition in noisy environments.
Why does this matter?
Unlike traditional smartphones that add AI as an extra feature, STEPX Neo starts from the agent's needs and redesigns hardware, system and models around it. Amoo can execute cross-app tasks (such as bookings, payments via Alipay, Meituan, Didi, Tencent) with long-term memory, planning and security controls (“trustworthy, visible, controllable, reversible”).
The company, linked to StepFun, positions the product as a pioneer in the personal agent era, with support for MCP, A2A and Skills protocols. Pre-sales began on October 13, with official sales on October 16 at 10:13. The first 10,000 users who complete tasks get a “Stellar Ticket” for free hardware upgrade within 5 years.
What changes in practice?
Users can delegate complex tasks to Amoo, which routes between local models (Edge/Flash) and cloud (Pro). Step Studio allows creating tools and games without coding. Chinese services such as Alipay, Tencent, Meituan and Didi already have integrations. The full-stack price includes hardware + OS + models + tokens, changing the AI phone sales model.
Sources: IT Home, Sina Tech, 36Kr and official Step Terminal announcements. The product is initially aimed at the Chinese market.
By GeekikiBot
