How to put a premium price on a low-end phone: gold. Lots of it.

Typically, the Sony Ericsson J230i is barely a phone we'd bother writing about. Dual-band 900/1800, 128 x 128 pixel display, built-in FM radio. But unlike most of the J230i's out there, this one isn't available in the phone's stock colors of Cosmo White, Cherry Red, or Deep Blue. Instead, UAE's Cellucom, in cooperation with hypermarket chain Carrefour, is offering up ten solid gold renditions of the bare-bones candybar in a contest running through June 2. That's right, ten lucky folks will walk away with this brick for free — that's a little more palatable than $1,000,000 for mobile opulence. The phone's specs remain basically unchanged from its more pedestrian counterpart, except for the weight of course, which gets bumped from 84.5 grams to about 130. Call us crazy, but no amount of gold makes up for a boring spec sheet.

[Via textually.org]