Lotus Technologies has announced the new Lotus Diplomat smartphone. This device will be crowdfunded, but specific details regarding pricing and the release date are not yet available. However, the manufacturer already showcases the phone on its official website. Essentially, it is a smartphone with a physical keyboard, which makes it somewhat comparable to a BlackBerry phone.
The keyboard is fairly large and includes a shortcut bar directly under the display, as well as dedicated numeric keys, which means numbers are not typed via secondary key assignments. This should allow for relatively fast typing. A second display is embedded in the keyboard and sports an always-on feature that can show the current time of day. When the device is in use, this display turns off but can still be used for inputs.
The smartphone’s main 5.3-inch display has a 4:3 aspect ratio and a resolution of 2560 x 1920 pixels. According to Lotus, customers will be able to choose between an OLED and an IPS panel. The SoC is expected to be the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which is a high-end chipset that will be paired with 24GB of RAM and 1.5TB of mass storage. The listed dimensions are about 5.87 x 4.45 x 0.33 inches, and the weight is about 9.45 oz. The remaining features of the BlackBerry-esque smartphone include an IR blaster, so the Lotus Diplomat can be used as a TV remote, for instance.




















