EV maker Polestar’s upcoming smartphone looks surprisingly good

Summary

• Polestar is entering the smartphone market, focusing on integration with its electric vehicles for a unique selling point.
• The design of Polestar’s phone includes super-thin symmetrical bezels, a 21:9 aspect ratio, and a large display.
• The question remains whether consumers will switch to a phone made by their car’s manufacturer for its integration benefits.

A few weeks back, Xiaomi, best known for its smartphones, unveiled a high-end electric vehicle that it suggests can compete with the likes of Porsche and Tesla. Restoring balance to the universe, luxury EV brand Polestar is set to unveil its new smartphone next week. While we don’t know much about it in terms of the specs and features, the company today shared some pictures of what the phone looks like, and boy, does it look cool!

Polestar has had a bit of a confusing history, so here’s some background on it. Started as a racing team called Flash Engineering less than a decade ago, it was bought out entirely by Volvo in 2015. But by that time, Ford sold off Volvo to Chinese automotive giant Geely. Over time, Geely increased its investments in both brands and established Polestar as a premium luxury electric vehicle brand for Europe, North America, and more recently, China. It currently sells two models, viz. the Polestar 2 and Polestar 3, with the Polestar 4 expected to ship later this year.

The reason for the Polestar phone’s existence is not to compete with other smartphone OEMs, but to show the potential of a connected ecosystem and how well its vehicles can communicate with other devices. The device was certified for sale in China last month and will be unveiled locally on April 23. It will be co-developed by Meizu, a smartphone brand owned by Geely.

Ahead of the launch, Polestar took to Weibo to tease the device (via Arena EV) and show it off in all its glory. It has flat rails like many other recent flagships along with four cameras that protrude a fair bit placed in a straight line. The most notable facet of the design is the super-thin and symmetrical bezel around the screen — something we don’t get to see often. A previous teaser stated that the bezels are only 2.2mm thin for a 91.5% screen-to-body ratio. It’s also one of the few phones with a 21:9 aspect ratio. Considering the 74mm width, the display should be bigger than 6.5 inches.

Design has always been a strong point for both Meizu and Polestar, so these elements are not particularly surprising. However, neither has a reputation for great software interfaces, so it remains to be seen how this phone changes that.

Flashy looks have a place, but does this phone?

Apart from a classy design, the main selling point of the device will be its close integration with Polestar cars. Having said that, we’re unsure how big the market for that would be, or how many consumers would switch to a phone made by their car’s manufacturer.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen tech companies use smartphones and smart cars to show the synergy of their operating systems. Xiaomi’s SU7 EV is probably the best example of this, but there’s also Nio and Huawei who have shown off similar concepts. Makes one wonder how Apple couldn’t figure it out, doesn’t it?