StepFun prices the STEPX Neo early-access phone at 3,999 yuan

On 13 October 2026, STEPX, the device brand tied to the model developer StepFun, held a Shanghai launch for the STEPX Neo, an early-access phone built around an agent named Amoo and an operating system named Step AOS 1.0. A TechWeb report on Sina, timestamped 22:23 that day, and a Sina Finance report at 20:16, both say pre-orders opened at 21:00 on 13 October and the first sale was at 10:13 on 16 October, on JD.com, Tmall and Douyin. Neither report labels a time zone. The event was in Shanghai.

Caixin Global, Yang Zirui, published 14 October at 1:57 p.m. GMT+8, says in its free lede that StepFun launched its first AI agent smartphone on Tuesday at 3,999 yuan ($597), and calls that phone the early-access edition of the STEPX Neo. The rest of the Caixin article is behind a subscription wall, so the specifications below are not taken from it. Decrypt, Jose Antonio Lanz, with a page time of 2026-10-17T15:01:03 and no zone on that stamp, converts 3,999 yuan to about $560. This account keeps the yuan price. Decrypt’s excerpt says the pre-orders opened in China.

The STEPX site describes STEPX Neo, in the page’s own summary, as a large-model-native agent phone. The static HTML does not list a price, a token allowance, or a sale date. Those details are from the launch reports.

What 3,999 yuan is said to include

TechWeb’s account says the 3,999 yuan price covers the phone, Step AOS, the Step Studio tool, and the Step series of models. It names two colors, carbon black and silicon silver (碳黑 and 硅银). Sina Finance, bylined Wen Meng, says the hardware is a Snapdragon 8-series chip with 16GB of memory and 256GB of storage. TechWeb does not repeat those hardware figures.

Both Chinese reports say the purchase includes 12 months of a STEPX Token Plan. TechWeb states the allowance as 百亿 tokens a month. 百亿 is 10 billion. Decrypt writes 100 billion tokens a month for the same plan. Sina Finance gives no monthly number. The STEPX page states no allowance. Decrypt also writes that StepFun has not said what the AI costs after the first year.

TechWeb adds an offer it calls the Step Amoo growth plan: the first 10,000 users who meet a task standard receive a ticket (星辰船票) to exchange the phone for any new STEPX device at 0 yuan within five years. It says the exact terms are on the product page. That page was not in the static HTML of stepx.com.

What the reports say Amoo can call

TechWeb says Step AOS 1.0, expanded there as Step Agentic-native OS, puts long-term memory, task scheduling and security controls in the base of the system. It describes two entrances, one for ordinary apps and one for the agent, and two memories. A user domain stores personal information, experiences and preferences. An agent domain stores knowledge, methods and experience.

TechWeb says Amoo can call many low-level system capabilities directly. On Step Studio, it says that layer opens sensors, the camera and the rear screen to makers, and that outside services and specialist agents connect through MCP and A2A. Decrypt states a tighter link: Step AOS breaks messaging, apps, files and settings into blocks the agent calls with MCP. The TechWeb wording keeps direct system calls and MCP links to outside services in separate sentences.

TechWeb says a model on the device handles simple instructions, such as a setting change or an alarm, including some with no network, and a cloud model plans harder jobs, including lookups and work across apps, which the device then carries out. Decrypt matches that split. Neither report names the weights on each side. Step 5 Preview is a separate release, in the API post and the weights post.

The rear screen, and the July showing

TechWeb says the phone has a main screen and a separate MiniLED dot-matrix screen on the back, used to show Amoo’s states. Decrypt calls that a second MiniLED screen on the back.

Caixin on 14 July, Gu Zhaowei and Yang Zirui, at 6:54 p.m. GMT+8, says a Shanghai event the previous Monday, 13 July, introduced Step AOS, Amoo and the STEPX brand. The caption says chairman Yin Qi displayed the STEPX Neo. Decrypt says that showing had no price and no sale date. The July article past the lede is also behind the subscription wall.

The October sale channels in the Chinese reports are JD.com, Tmall and Douyin. Those reports do not describe a sale outside mainland China.

Where the reports part

The 3,999 yuan price, the early-access name, and the 16 October first sale line up across the launch reports. The monthly token figure does not. The Snapdragon chip and the 16GB and 256GB figures are in Sina Finance only. TechWeb’s partner list is Alipay, Tencent, Ctrip (携程), Didi, 剪映, Amap (高德) and Meituan, plus a count of nearly 100 companies or products. Momenta, dated 13 October, is one paragraph and cites other outlets for the large-model-native label and for memory, scheduling and security in Step AOS.