Helpful Items

Until recently, the vast majority of mobile phones had been priced between £100 and £300, with only Vertu, a division of Nokia, manufacturing uber-premium phones. With prices starting at around £4,000 Vertu phones are only for the filthy rich, and the super famous.
However, Vertu’s monopoly of the luxury phone market is coming to an end with the launch of several new luxury mobile makers, including Gresso, Mobiado and GoldVish. Other mobile phone manufacturers are also partnering with luxury brands to produce a range of premium mobile phones, such as LG and Prada, D&G and Motorola, and now Tag Heuer and Modelabs. Finally, there are the ridiculous, super-expensive one-offs, made purely for headline grabbing, such as Goldvish’s “Le million”, worth a cool $1,000,000, see below for details!

1. Goldvish “Le million” - $1,000,000
A PR stunt it may be, and they surely can’t be expecting to sell any, but the Goldvish “Le million” is officially the most expensive mobile phone in the world, according the Guiness Books of Records. There’s even been talk of a $1.3million phone, but this has fewer diamonds than the Goldvish so I can’t see where the extra expense comes from! The “Le million” is a one off, featuring a blinding 120 carats worth of VVS-1 grade diamonds, according to designer Emmanuel Gueit. If $1 million is out of your price range. the Geneva-based Goldvish also offer several other diamond-encrusted 18k gold models in your choice of rose, yellow, or white, starting at a much more reasonable $25,600 (£13,837).

2. Vertu Signature Cobra = $310,000

Vertu is now taking orders for the Signature Cobra, designed by French Jeweller Boucheron, but you had better be quick as only 8 pieces are being made. The Cobra will feature one pear-cut diamond, one round white diamond, two emerald eyes and 439 rubies. Vertu will also be offering a “cheaper” version, ruby free, at $115,000.

3. Sony Ericsson Black Diamond = $300,000
The Black Diamond is already available since 2007, not from Sony Ericssonn but by a company called VIPN. Initially only 5 unique numered pieces are available for the unbelievable price of, wait for $300,000.With regards to the specifications, don’t expect anything remarkable for your money. It will have Quad-band with Wi-If, an Intel 400Mhz processor running windows mobile 5, and a touch sensitive 2? Screen. It will also include internal memory of 128Mb and will come with a 2Gb SD card for external storage, plus a respectable 4 megapixel camera.The designer Jaren Goh has used some pretty impressive materials for the build, featuring titane with polycarbonate, mirror-finish cladding and diamonds.

The Diamond is Vertu’s premium range of high-end mobile phones. As the name suggests the handsets in the Diamond range are diamond-encrusted handsets made from platinum. Only 200 pieces of the handsets are being produced. The most expensive believed to be worth an estimated $92,000.

Austrian designer Peter Aloisson, has taken a standard Motorola, studded it with 1,200 diamonds and added a keyboard inlaid with 18K gold. The outcome is a $51,800 handset, suitable only for footballers and film stars!

If you have $2,700 to spare, you can now buy the Nokia 8800 in 24K gold. However, be warned, if you think you’ll be getting a better phone for your extra cash, you won’t! The features found on the Gold Edition are the standard 8800 features, which are pretty basic. It includes a 0.5 megapixel SVGA camera, 64 MB of internal memory, 64 voice polyphonic ringtones, FM radio, MP3 player, video recording and 180 minutes talktime. However, the Gold Edition does includes a special edition box and charging dock.

The Mobiado Professional EM, is a wood-clad upgrade of their earlier Nokia-based phone that includes a 1.3 megapixel camera, music player, FM radio, bluetooth, and according to Mobiado, it’s the first production phone with Titanium buttons. Only 200 pieces are being made and each one has its limited number engraved on the back. At $1,900 however, you’re still paying an awfully high premium for a fairly basic phone encased in wood!

Bang & Olufsen hooked up with Samsung to design the sleek but unconventional Serene. It’s not a bad looking phone and it even has a built-in motor to assist you in opening and closing the phone. It’s not very practical however, requiring a special screwdriver to access the battery and the SIM card, and its circular keypad will take some time getting used to. Also, for some strange reason they have positioned the camera lens on the side of the device, which will make it difficult to align snapshots via the viewfinder on the display.

The Lamborghini Nokia 8800 Sirocco is another special edition, like the previously launch, Aston Martin branded Sirocco. It will ultimately be a standard 8800 Sirocco but with the addition of the famous Lamborghini logo engraved on the front and the back, plus ball bearings from the auto company to in the slider phone mechanism. The Lamborghini phone will be a limited edition with only 500 pieces being made. It will also feature Lamborghini graphics as wallpapers, screensavers, ringtones, and even has a short documentary video about the Lamborghini.

The Russia based Gresso, is a new entry into the luxury phone market. Their aptly name “Gresso Luxury Phone” is made of gold and African Blackwood. Apparently they will be releasing a collection of five models called the Black Aura collection, and the designer is a “well known” Italian designer. Currently there are two versions of the African Blackwood phone, one with pink gold highlights named the Gresso Blackwood Gold Edition, and one made entirely of African Blackwood. In addition to the two African Blackwood phones Gresso also make a phone made entirely of pink gold named the Gresso Gold phone. Initially, the phones will be on sale only in Russia.