Vertu Ti, which previously made Symbian phones for people with money to burn, has unveiled an Android phone with a price tag that an average buyer couldn't afford. The entry-level model, which has a sapphire-surfaced screen display, and durable titanium frame with leather, is priced at $9,600 in the U.S., while the red gold mixed metals version comes at $22,100. The device just has specs of a mid-range phone under the hood, and doesn't have 4G, although phone owners have exclusive 24/7 access to Vertu's concierge service by pressing a ruby button on the back. Although the top dollar pricetag won't buy the world's latest technology, it gets better durability: only a diamond could scratch the sapphire display, and the titanium frame makes the device five times stronger than other phones. The Vertu Ti is available starting February.
What Else You Need To Know
- Each Vertu Ti is handmade by a single craftsman at Vertu's headquarters in England.
- The Ti features a low resolution 800 x 480 3.7-inch display, a mid-range 1.7GHz Qualcomm dual-core processor, a small 1,250mAh battery, 8MP rear camera, 1.3MP front-facing camera, 64GB of internal storage, and Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.
- Vertu was previously a subsidiary of Nokia but the Finnish handset makersold its luxury phone unit in 2011 for a purported $250 million to a private equity group.
- For its post-Nokia era, Vertu said it chose Android over Windows as an operating system because it was more established.
- Vertu sells to a very exclusive club of buyers, with just 326,000 Vertu phone owners after 10 years.
Other sources
The idea behind the Ti is to provide the luxury with more contemporary functionality.- Rik Henderson, Pocket-lint
It doesn’t take much for us to know that 10 grand for a phone that doesn’t run the latest Android operating system, nor is capable of 4G LTE connectivity is a bit over the top. But if you’re rich and have nothing to do with your money besides blow it on frivolous stuff like this, then by all means cop it.- Charles West, Into Mobile
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