Japanese design firm Balmuda right now introduced its first smartphone at a press occasion in Tokyo. The straightforwardly titled Balmuda Cellphone is the debut product from Balmuda Applied sciences, a brand new division of the corporate beforehand identified for fashionable, premium dwelling home equipment like air purifiers and rice cookers. Balmuda’s toaster specifically has a cult following in Japan.
As you’d anticipate, the Balmuda Cellphone is sort of a bit completely different to different telephones in the marketplace. CEO Gen Terao stated on stage that he felt that smartphones have gotten too large and unwieldy in recent times, so the Balmuda Cellphone was designed with compactness and class as the first objectives. It has a really sharp 4.9-inch 16:9 1080p show and is roughly akin to a 4.7-inch iPhone SE; the show is barely greater and the cellphone is 2mm wider, however the smaller bezels imply it’s 15mm shorter.
The Balmuda Cellphone is a full 13.7mm thick at its thickest level, however the again panel tapers down closely towards the sides. There’s a single giant digicam with a 48-megapixel sensor within the prime proper nook, and a similar-looking cutout within the prime left homes a fingerprint sensor. The 8-megapixel selfie digicam is housed in a hole-punch cutout on the prime proper of the display screen.
The cellphone’s specs are usually mid-range. The processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 and there’s 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The battery is simply 2,500mAh, which is able to hopefully be offset considerably by the lower-power processor, although we’ll have to check for ourselves to see. The cellphone does fortunately have wi-fi charging.
The place Balmuda is basically differentiating itself is with design. It’s a well-worn tech writing cliche to say that one thing “feels good within the hand,” however that was clearly Balmuda’s intent right here with the compact dimension and curved again that nestles into your palm like a pebble. I’ve large fingers, granted, however I believe nearly anybody would discover this extra comfy to make use of than the hefty 6-inch slabs most of us carry round nowadays. Whereas the case is plastic, construct high quality feels stable and there’s a pleasant distinction between the textured again panel and the shiny edges. All in all it’s a cute, enticing object.
The software program, based mostly on Android 11, can also be very completely different to what you’d discover on most Android telephones right now. There’s an interactive dwelling display screen with numerous parts of the wallpaper customizable for various shortcuts; for instance, you possibly can swipe on one of many traces to launch Google Maps. Horizontal swipes transfer you between a few of the built-in software program, like a calendar, a notes app, and a calculator. All of those had neat design touches, just like the notes app’s visible timeline of photographs and memos, or the calculator app’s built-in foreign money conversion and talent to deal with giant Japanese numbers which might be counted within the 10,000s reasonably than the 1000’s.
The Balmuda Cellphone might be out there in Japan on contract with SoftBank later this month, and Balmuda is promoting an unlocked mannequin itself for 104,800 yen (about $920). That may sound like lots for a compact Android 11 cellphone with these specs, however then $329 in all probability feels like lots for a toaster, too. In each instances, you’re paying for the design and the consumer expertise reasonably than the invoice of supplies, and this clearly isn’t geared toward anybody who desires a traditional Android flagship. As somebody who does personal Balmuda’s toaster, I’m wanting ahead to discovering out how properly the cellphone holds up underneath common use — as a result of a lot as I just like the toaster, a smartphone is much more essential to my life.
