We heard a number of interesting stories starring China’s Baidu last spring, but come summer it was like the company went into total sleep mode. It was all quiet on the Eastern front during the fall too, but now that winter is (almost) here Baidu is back in business.

While we have no idea what happened with the Changhong H5018, Baidu’s supposedly first Android-based phone, another device has just popped up on the web, looking much more enticing. Known simply as the “Cloud Phone” right now, this has mostly mid-range specs (which is still an upgrade over H5018’s low-end features), but also one or two rather unique elements.

First off, the device is expected to be tightly integrated with Baidu’s cloud services and filled with exclusive apps. Mind you, that’s not to be taken lightly, as the company’s search engine is the fifth most visited website in the world, just behind Google, Facebook, YouTube and Yahoo and ahead of Wikipedia, Amazon or Twitter.

Baidu’s custom ROM, which is a heavily customized version of Android, will definitely run on the phone, but we don’t know exactly how that will look, as we think it has gone through some major changes since June.

The dual-mode dual-standby CDMA/GSM support is another feature of the Cloud Phone that you don’t see very often, making this essentially a 2-in-1 gadget that can work on any network around the Globe, be it CDMA-based or GSM.

Moving on to the more mundane aspects of this still unconfirmed device, let’s talk hardware. According to speculations, there’ll be a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor ticking inside the Cloud Phone, 1 GB of RAM, a 5 MP camera slapped on its back and a 4.5-inch touchscreen with 960 x 540 pixels resolution.

Again, not quite high-end specs (especially compared with recently unveiled phones from Xiaomi or Meizu), but definitely decent enough to be worth a second look. Now let’s just wait and hear about the pricing, the release date on China Telecom and maybe we can start talking about importing afterwards. Interested?