I learned about an upcoming smartphone called the Lotus Diplomat from an article on NotebookCheck (HT to Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony).The Lotus Diplomat looks much like my old BlackBerry Classic, right down to the QWERTY keyboard. According to NoteBook Check, it will have a 5.3 inch display with a resolution of 2560×1920 (which is better than my 24-inch monitors…) with OLED and IPS panel options.  “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.” As ana dded bonus, the phone will include an “IR blaster” so it can be used for a TV remote (note that I did not know my BlackBerry phones had that functionality, the more you know…).

I have repeatedly called for the return of QWERTY phones. While I have stated my preference for a QWERTY phone with an e-ink panel running something closer to mainline Linux than Android (or at least something that can be officially supported by LineageOS or better yet GrapheneOS), Lotus Diplomat does look interesting to me on the surface. However, before evaluating whether it may be supported by LineageOS, I agree with Pixy Misa’s assessment of one obvious, still-unstated problem with this device:

Price is not mentioned, and you might be best off not asking.

Pixy Misa

I know not how much the Lotus Diplomat will cost, only that the cost will not be good (I will guess just a touch more than the $109.95 I spent on my refurbished BlackBerry Classic on February 28, 2018).