kikusui

Latest

  • Vertu reminds us it's still alive with million-Yen phones, still tasteless as ever

    by 
    Vlad Savov
    Vlad Savov
    03.26.2010

    What's a distinguished person of taste and refinement to do when smartphones nowadays are all so bulky and, well, ubiquitous? He or she should go take a look at Vertu's store, of course, which has today been populated for the first time with a new, even more exclusive Signature collection, composed of four models -- one for each season. There's a load of talk about delicate hand-crafting and latest technology with these, but the truth of the matter is that you'll be buying one solely for the purpose of puling it out of your carefully pressed, kerchiefed Armani suit in the hope of impressing any and all nearby members of the opposite sex. What this phone will then say, nay, scream, about you is that you have the money to buy things that are neither functional nor physically appealing -- the surest way to signal wealth and prestige. How much money? Try a million Yen for each handset, which roughly translates to $10,830. Update: Our sage readers have noted a failure in our machine-translated pricing. The handsets in fact cost 20 million Yen a piece, which equates to $216,600. So sorry to have misled you if you were heading off to the bank to get that 10 grand. %Gallery-89084%