A Polestar Telephone now inexplicably exists

Polestar, the Volvo offshoot EV firm, has made a smartphone. It is known as, predictably, the Polestar Telephone, and it is solely out there in China. There have been a variety of car-brand smartphones on the market (it is usually Lamborghini), however normally, these are licensing offers that the automotive firm ignores. Polestar appears to be pleased with this telephone, although, making it a bit extra concerned than the same old car-brand licensing deal. Simply have a look at the brand new navigation drawer on the polestar.cn web site, which has 4 foremost objects: “Polestar 2”, “Polestar 3”, “Polestar 4” and now “Polestar Telephone.”

Why would a distinct segment EV model make a telephone? Perhaps all that work on the Android Automotive OS made Polestar’s engineers actually obsessed with Android gadget improvement. The web site, via machine translation, guarantees the telephone was “collectively designed by the Polestar international design crew and the Xingji Meizu crew in Gothenburg, Sweden, and is embellished with Swedish gold particulars that symbolize excessive efficiency.” “Embellished” might be one of the simplest ways you might describe Polestar’s contributions to this telephone because it appears to be a lavatory customary Meizu 21 Professional with some Polestar branding. It does look stunning, with a no-nonsense minimal rectangular design and all-screen entrance, however the identical could be mentioned for the Meizu telephone that is based mostly on.

So, how precisely is the Polestar Telephone associated to a Polestar automotive? Properly, each run Android and have all-electric energy programs. The telephone has a barely smaller battery than the EV, at solely 5,050 mAh (that is one thing like 18 Wh) in comparison with the 100 kWh battery of one thing like a Polestar 4. The automotive additionally has the telephone beat on-screen measurement, with the telephone packing a pocketable 120 Hz 6.79-inch, 3192×1368 OLED, and the Polestars all sporting large pill screens.

A spec comparability is just not a clear sweep for the vehicles, although. The unhappy factor concerning the state of the automotive infotainment market is that the pc on this ~$1,000 (7,388 yuan) telephone is dramatically quicker than what powers any of the infotainment programs in Polestar’s $50,000–$75,000 automobiles. The Polestar Telephone ships with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. That is a flagship cellular SoC from 2023 constructed on a 4 nm course of. All of the Polestar vehicles within the Google Play Developer console (which lists all Android units on the earth) are constructed round an Intel Atom A3960 SoC. That is a fully historical, bottom-of-the-barrel 14 nm x86 desktop CPU launched round 2016. This chip was unhealthy eight years in the past when it got here out, but remains to be transport in the present day. The vehicles all have 4GB or 8GB of RAM, and the Polestar 2 I checked out had 128GB of storage, all clear wins for the telephone spec sheet.

The Polestar Telephone and Polestar Automotive (particularly, the Polestar 4) will speak to one another. Polestar guarantees that sometime the telephone will help Android’s digital automotive key performance, however not at launch.  The Polestar Telephone’s “Polestar UI” guarantees a “wealthy software icon design [that] is in line with the Polestar OS within the automotive.” One thing known as “Polestar Hyperlink” apparently permits you to see a number of pages of the telephone’s dwelling display screen on the large automotive pill show, and it feels like possibly apps will float between the 2 units? It is arduous to know too many particulars as a result of 1) there simply have not been that many particulars printed but, and a pair of) the small print that exist are all in Chinese language.

There’s a likelihood this telephone will probably be offered outdoors of China. Just like the vehicles, it’s on the Google Play Dev Console, and since there is no such thing as a Google Play in China, the telephone’s registration with Google suggests a plan for worldwide gross sales.

Itemizing picture by Polestar