www.chinaphonearena.com

While looking at this thread [Only registered and activated users can see links Click here to register], forum members Elusivo and Sniper47 were talking about the the fact that the K1 uses Aliyun or YunOS. While I've had a lot of experience with Android itself, I didn't (and still don't) know much about YunOS. Hence, I'd like to put out the question: when looking at phones from Chinese manufacturers, is it something to be concerned about? Is there a quick (read: easy) way to tell if a particular phone is indeed using it?

Compatibility with Android apps and ability to backup/root/upgrade ROMs are things I do look for as well when picking a phone. So far, I have not had much luck in finding out more details on it - most of the websites (even the YunOS site itself) is in Chinese.

Its not so easy. Basically the ROM needs to be decompiled and then you will see it uses .jex instead of .jar. Currently Aliyun has not caught up with 4.4.2 and I believe Alibaba has given up on keeping up with it. Though that's no guarantee they won't change their minds and come up to speed.

Ah... thanks for that bit of info. I guess for now, that means if a phone (really) has Android KitKat, it is more than likely not running Aliyun. I suppose if one didn't care about rooting or installing custom ROMs and needing CWM, it shouldn't be too much of a concern.

Rooting Aliyun is no problem. Custom ROMs as well. One example is the THL T11. There are many custom ROMs for it, but the stock ROM is Aliyun. So they normally will keep the same kernel etc...and just change out the system.