Cynogenmod is an extremely popular revision of Google’s android system offering upgrades of speed, reliability and features. Started as a community driven endeavour to improve Andorid in late 2008, it’s grown to be installed on over 8 million devices and been given funding equal to more than 10,000,000s. Essentially, it’s now in the running to be one of the most used mobile operating systems below iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

The last few months have been littered with interesting news from the Cyanogen team: fast releases of Google’s latest versions, the choice to encrypt SMSs as a default feature and the VC capital funding they’ve received to make the sky the limit.

Last but not least is the relationship between Cyanogen and Chinese phone manufacturer Oppo. For the majority of the mods history, it’s been used as a way to revamp your old smartphone and get a bit of extra juice out of the outdated hardware. Cyanogen are now looking to change that. This partnership with Oppo has resulted in the creation of a brand new handset with Cyanogen mod preloaded on.

From the looks of the press release it doesn't seem like they’re looking to target the sub <$500 smartphone market of which Google holds a big stake in with their Nexus handsets. Oppo is pitching the device at a price point of US $599, roughly the same price you would pay for HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 or iPhone 5S. It’s a bold move by Cyangoen proving their confidence in both Oppo’s hardware and there software.

A few early reviews have reported positively on the collaboration. The Verge cites the great build quality, awesome performance (thanks to the mod) and decent battery life as all the pros of the device. However (and worth nothing) the device doesn’t offer 4G, suffers from display quality and underwhelming camera, qualities that people expect when paying above $500 US for a handset.

Check out the final verdict here.