All you need to know about the new Moto Z and Lenovo Phab

“This phone can transform itself,” said Hollywood star and Lenovo spokesman Ashton Kutcher.

“This phone can transform itself,” said Hollywood star and Lenovo spokesman Ashton Kutcher.

Lenovo has a new series of smartphones -- a market-ready PHAB2 Pro smartphone imbued with Google-created Tango augmented reality technology -- that was launched at the Lenovo Tech World gathering in San Francisco.

Lenovo's announcement comes just after Korean smartphone-maker LG revealed its first modular smartphone -- the G5 that come with at least five accessories-- in India.

PHAB2 can sense and map its surroundings, enabling holograms to be overlaid on real world settings for anything from game play to figuring out which size sofa would fit in a room.

The big-screen gadget will be available globally in September for $499.

"It is a pretty incredible piece of technology for, really, a great price," said Tango engineering director Johnny Lee.

In what Lenovo chief executive Yang Yuanqing billed as perhaps the most important announcement at the event, Lenovo also unveiled new Moto Z smartphones that can be customized with "mods" -- specialized pieces of hardware that snap into place magnetically to give handsets added capabilities.

For example, one mod let a Moto Z project video on walls or ceilings at sizes as large as a 70-inch television screen.

Another mod turned Moto Z handsets into powerful speakers.

"This phone can transform itself," said Hollywood star and Lenovo spokesman Ashton Kutcher.

"This is actually a full-blown game-changer."

Lenovo also launched a smartphone mod program for developers, enticing them with a million-dollar prize for a mod that best integrates handsets with services hosted in the Internet cloud.