Japanese design company Balmuda, best known for making high-end toasters, has announced their first smartphone.
Balmuda CEO Gen Terao has said that smartphones have gotten too big and unwieldy in recent years, and thus the Balmuda Phone was designed with compactness and elegance as the primary goals.
The device has a curved design, with the back being 13.7mm thick at its peak, but it curves sharply towards the edges.
Balmuda intends the phone to be extremely comfortable for single-handed usage, with the curved design helping it easily rest in most hands like a pebble.
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The Balmuda Phone features a 4.9-inch FHD screen with a 16:9 ratio, around the size of the iPhone SE (2020).
At the back, it has a single 48MP camera, along with a fingerprint sensor. The front houses an 8MP selfie shooter in a hole-punch cutout on the top right of the screen.
Under the hood, the phone is powered by the Snapdragon 765 SoC, along with 6GB RAM and 128GB of storage. Keeping the lights on is a 2,500mAh battery, with wireless charging support.
The phone runs a customised version of Android 11, with customisable wallpapers which have elements that can act as app shortcuts. Users can also swipe horizontally to move between built-in apps like the calendar, notes, and calculator apps.
The Balmuda Phone is priced at around 104,800 yen in Japan, or around ₹68,000. It will be available later this month in the country in black and white colours.
No plans for pricing or availability in other countries, including India, have been announced yet.