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The Volvo-owned Polestar has been jointly working on a phone with Meizu. In September, Polestar confirmed its Meizu-made smartphone heads to the market in December. Now, the firm has teased the device in its inaugural Polestar Day event.
CEO Thomas Ingenlath already announced the Polestar-branded Android smartphone will be a premium device. However, it doesn’t aim to compete with flagships from other companies. The alleged phone comes as an accessory for Polestar EVs. BMW already had a similar project with Samsung to include a Samsung-made tablet in its Series 7 vehicles.
According to the images showcased at the Polestar Day event, the Polestar-branded smartphone will be made based on the Meizu 20 series. The phone has a flat metal frame with three camera modules at the rear panel. To be more specific, the triple camera setup includes a 23mm equivalent primary camera with an f/1.9 aperture, a 70mm telephoto (f/2.0), and a 15mm ultra-wide lens with an f/2.4 aperture.
Polestar launches its Meizu-made smartphone in December
The Polestar logo is engraved on the side edges. The company’s logo also stands out on the back of the device. The flat screen has a punch hole at the top for hosting the selfie camera. Yet, we don’t have any information about the device’s hardware.
Given that Polestar’s CEO said the phone is a premium device, we can expect to see Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip and plenty of RAM. Support for wireless fast charging is certainly included. The phone is said to be exclusive to the Chinese market. But things might change until the official launch in December.
Polestar CEO noted they plan to use this phone to differentiate their vehicles from rivals. Additionally, they want to bring a seamless experience to customers with the smartphone. “Where you have an opportunity to link these two worlds, without any border … then you can really have a seamless transition”, Ingenlath said. “I still have problems to get, you know, an SMS displayed.”
If you ever ask why Polestar is turning to Meizu to build its smartphone, the answer is the Chinese car maker Geely, which acquired Meizu in 2022, is also a shareholder of Polestar and Volvo.
As many car manufacturers are partnering with smartphone makers to bring tech to their vehicles, some OEMs are also entering the EV segment. The Chinese OEM Huawei has recently launched its second EV with a starting price of just $35,400. On paper, Huawei’s EV is a tough rival to the Tesla Model S.