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Vertu, the purveyors of luxury cell phones, has announced its latest waste of money. Called the Ti, it’s handmade in England and can be yours for the princely sum of £7,000.
What do you get for your money? Ooh, a titanium case (hence the name), a sapphire crystal display, and the reassurance of quality that comes with a product handmade in England. Sadly, the specs don’t quite match the price ticket: you’ll get a 3.7-inch WVGA screen, dual-core SnapDragon S4 processor and… Android 4.0?
Yes, that operating system is 16 months old and, yes, that is terrible. Still, you get 24-hour concierge service, which means you probably don’t really need your phone to be able to do stuff anyway. What’s funny is that Vertu’s head of design acknowledges that the phone’s a bit crap, telling the BBC that “Vertu will never be at the bleeding edge of technology… it has to be about relevant technology and craftsmanship — it’s not a disposable product.”
All that, and you’re not impressed? Well ex-Nokia Vice President Anssi Vanjoki certainly is. He says:
And if that nonsensical gibbering isn’t enough to convince you, well… I don’t think anything else will, either. [Vertu, BBC]
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Chav lottery winners all over the country will be very excited, overwhelmingly so if Elizabeth Duke brings out a matching jewellery range.
What is the market for such a thing?
With people willing to pay £7000 you could put so much more functionality in there. It’s such a missed opportunity.
Why would they put more in? That would cost them more money.
Fair enough. Glorified Blackberry Pearl it is then.
Pretentious phone for pretentious twats.
Are you describing the iPhone?
Now you sound like the pretentious one!
Your comment makes no sense as you clearly don’t understand the word pretentious. Look it up!
I can’t understand why people get so worked up over an operating system. Get over it.
You were attempting to impress other android users by affecting greater importance for the OS over that of the iPhone and it’s users.
Incorrect. I was suggesting that there are a lot of people that buy an iphone that either don’t need one or would be better suited to another phone. They buy the brand, and buy it for an inflated price. I know lots of minimum wage earners that have iphones that they neither need nor can afford them.
But really it was just a silly throw away comment that has now lost it’s effect with me having to explain it.
Sorry dude. Got me at a bad moment I guess.
Let us put this silliness behind us.
I think the point is being lost. It is built as a luxury item in much the same way as a designer watch and using old technology, again like a designer watch. Do people say that a Rolex is rubbish because it costs so much but cannot tell me the time in Tokyo, when a cheaper casio can?
That argument would be valid if the Rolex had the same insides as a cheap, 2 year old Casio
This doesn’t have the same insides as a “cheap” phone – if you are in London go to Harrods and try one out, they are pure quality and built to last, much like a Rolex.
A Rolex can’t even do calculations like my 1984 Casio can!
There is no way to justify this cost unless you have more money than sense or are a so called celeb (in which case the more money than sense probably applies).
The only thing worse than this phone is all the people (and tech blogs) moaning about it.
I work for a private jet firm and I get a similar reaction when I explain to people that if they want to fly on a private jet from London to Sydney, it’ll cost them round about £245,000 big ones.
You can literally see their faces drop and their eyes bulge with horror. Even when it’s over the phone…
Vertu phones supposed to impress people like you and me, they are for one thing, and one thing only. They are for the rich and elite to show off their wealth to each other.
Much like the Centurion card, they have been around for a long time but it’s only recently that “normal” folk have taken notice