Step Terminal has launched the STEPX Neo in China, pairing a custom operating system with its Amoo AI agent in a bid to turn natural-language commands into everyday tasks.
Step Terminal has entered China’s smartphone market with the STEPX Neo, a device it is positioning as more than another Android alternative. The company says the phone is built around an AI agent called Amoo and a custom operating system, Step AOS, with the aim of shifting everyday use away from app-by-app navigation and towards task completion through natural language commands. StepFun, the parent company described by Chinese media, has gone further by claiming the handset is the first mass-market “agentic” smartphone.
The device went on pre-order in China on 13 October 2026 at 9pm local time, with first sales scheduled for 16 October at 10:13am. Step Terminal has set the starting price at 3,999 yuan, which the company and reports around the launch translate to about $560, although that conversion is only indicative. Initial sales are confined to Chinese channels including JD.com, Tmall and Douyin.
Step Terminal is selling the STEPX Neo as a bundled package rather than as hardware alone. The entry model includes a Snapdragon 8-series chip, 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, alongside Step AOS, the Step Studio tool and access to the company’s AI models. The price also covers 12 months of the STEPX Token Plan, which grants 100 billion tokens a month. The company describes this as a “full-stack” offer, although it has not clearly explained what happens when the included year ends or whether users will need to pay separately to keep the AI functions.
According to Step Terminal’s launch materials, Step AOS 1.0 is designed around long-term memory and task planning, allowing the assistant to remember information and carry out multi-step requests. The phone also has a separate MiniLED screen on the back for Amoo’s status, plus two ways to summon the assistant even while another app is in use. Voice interaction relies on six microphones, a low-power audio chip and the Whisper 1.0 algorithm, which the company says helps the system hear users in noisy surroundings. Step Terminal claims the dedicated chip uses just 1.2% of battery over 24 hours of continuous operation, a figure that has not been independently verified.
The hardware presentation is as much part of the pitch as the software. Chinese reports describe the design as “retro-futuristic”, with a transparent rear panel exposing mechanical-looking components and several references to the history of artificial intelligence. Two colourways are listed, carbon black and silicon silver. Step Terminal has also said the first 10,000 eligible buyers under its Amoo Growth Plan could exchange their device for any new phone from the brand over the next five years, while around 100 partners are said to be involved in the wider project, including Alipay and Tencent. Whether the concept gains traction will depend on how reliably Amoo handles real tasks, how much data it consumes and what the company asks users to pay once the first year of access expires.
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