Baidu, the Chinese answer to Google, has announced details of its soon-to-launch new smartphone and the cloud-centric operating system (OS) that will power it.

The Foxconn-built Changhong H5018 will be the first device powered by Baidu’s “Cloud Smart Terminal” platform, marking ”the arrival of a new era” of sub $150 (1,000 RMB) devices in China.

Every H5018 phone owner will be given a generous 100 GB of storage on Baidu’s Netdrive, a beta service known locally as Wangpan. The Google Drive-like service will store multimedia content in the cloud while linking back to the desktop service, while standard services like Baidu Music, Baidu Map and other applications will come with the phone.

Baidu is also preparing its own dedicated app store — the Baidu Cloud Store — which it says will provide access to “a huge range” of apps to cater for the needs of smartphone owners.

Technode has spotted the arrival of Baidu Xiangce (Baidu Album), a photo-upload service that will sync to Baidu Cloud-powered devices and also be offered standalone.