Fancy a new 5" superphone? ZTE may have something to pique your interest - if you live in China. The company's latest high-end device, the Grand S, was unveiled yesterday prior to CES, and we got some hands-on time earlier today. It hits all the right points: 5" 1080p display, 13MP rear camera, 1.7GHz quad-core processor, Android 4.1, LTE connectivity, and is a fairly stunning 6.9mm in profile.

But, ZTE wasn't shy about discussing market availability: China. It's possible the Grand S will makes its way to Europe, but the only locale ZTE was willing to commit to availability on today was its own. As far as the US, ZTE makes a number of low-end and midrange handsets for carriers here in America (Sprint, in particular), but those devices are typically rebranded, redesigned versions of existing ZTE hardware. So, it's possible you could see a phone like the Grand S in the US at some point this year, but it probably won't be called that, and it'll probably look different, too. But it's equally likely it'll never come at all.

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As far as my impressions, the Grand S was undeniably quick. ZTE's UI overlay, though, was definitely registering high on the weirdometer. There's a persistent software back button that sits above the screen constantly, like a floating app (I assume it can be disabled / hidden, but I didn't figure that out in my brief hands-on). When you're on a homescreen, tapping it will also show the recent apps button, home button, and menu button. It's really strange, and I'm not sure I really get the usefulness on a phone that has hardware capacitive navigation buttons to begin with. It definitely seems redundant.

ZTE's lockscreen was also interesting, with a dense rotary menu. Honestly, this may all seem a little more normal in the Grand S's home market, so I'm not going to judge too harshly. I do wonder just how big a battery ZTE is managing to fit in that svelte frame, though - the Grand S is crazy thin. This is also probably the best Chinese OEM smartphone I've seen to date, so that's something.

The Grand S will be available in China starting in Q1 2013.