Turns Out There Really Is A Market For Insanely Expensive, Diamond-Encrusted Mobile Phones

from the i'll-pass,-thanks dept

I’ll admit that I was skeptical upon hearing of Nokia’s idea a few years ago to start up a small subsidiary, called Vertu, that would cater to “splurging millionaires” offering diamond-encrusted phones for $20,000. The folks at Vertu claimed it was no different than buying a super high end watch. While some of the prices came down (as low as $4,000 in some cases), some people also noticed that for your additional thousands of dollars, you actually got a much less technically advanced phone. Yes, it might have some diamonds, but it might also already be technologically obsolete. Of course, it turns out that splurging millionaires don’t really care about being on the cutting edge. They do, however, seem to care about buying diamond-encrusted phones. A couple years ago, we noted that the phones were doing well in Asia, and the latest report is that Vertu simply can’t keep up with the “high” demand for their offering. Of course, not being able to meet demand doesn’t always mean there’s a huge demand. It could simply mean that the company is pretty weak on the supply side (gotta keep buying those diamonds). However, the company does indicate that it has “tens of thousands” of customers, but not “hundreds of thousands.”


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Comments on “Turns Out There Really Is A Market For Insanely Expensive, Diamond-Encrusted Mobile Phones”

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29 Comments
Mike S. says:

Re: Re:



Lets make some gold plated home theater sets with diamonds for buttons and the thing is also laced with platinum.

Ooh.. even better! How but just some gold plated wires and connectors for stupid people who claim they can “really hear the difference” — We could make millions on that and the buyers would think they were actually getting something useful!

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

lol, even better, lets encrust diamonds into the cables themselves, make up some wild accusation that it ‘boosts signals and clarity by up to 700%’ and when people complain that the sharp diamond edges are cutting up the wires/furniture, we’ll state that it’s a product feature for old people who lost their cats

Dom says:

Just like watches

The comparison to watches is quite apt. Those diamond incrusted ones will just tell the time, and often it doesn’t even do that very well. Whereas my watch tells me the time, my heartrate, and can give me averages over various workouts and all that. Cost a minute fraction of what a diamond encrusted one would cost, for much much more function.

Really kick to your head... says:

Please... like you wouldn't....

Some of you guys seem to forget….there are people in this world with money to burn!!! They don’t care.

And yes, I asure you a lot of them already donate a chunk of it to charity, and still have enough to buy that $100,000.00 watch, or that $1 million Ferrari Enzo.

So what… Grow up and just let people be with their money. Are they hurting you in any way?

I know…If you had all that money, you will still be driving that 2003 Honda Accord, or working out of that 5 year old computer with a CRT screen.

Right…. 🙂

Sanguine Dream says:

Re: Please... like you wouldn't....

I’m not so sure about that. Chances are most of the people that are getting these diamond phones were born into ungodly amounts of money. They’ve never experienced having to hold on to money and spend wisely. I’ll admit that if I hit it big time I’d splurge a little bit but I know two things for sure:

1. I’d get all my other monetary affairs (debt) in order first before anything else.

2. If I did splurge on something it sure as shooting would not be something as relatively small and easy to lose/get stolen as a cell phone with diamonds on it.

Tyshaun says:

if you got it...

Hey, if you got it, flaunt it. I’m sure whoever is dropping 20 grand for a cell phone doesn’t have too many money worries.

As fr the functionality thing, I’ve been in some super high end cars and a lot of them didn’t have all the “gadgets” I thought they would. The geek set (us) loves lots of functionality, the money set just wants it to work and look expensive.

Anonymous Coward says:

Even if I had Bill Gates money, I can’t see myself buying a diamond cell phone.

First of all, what the hell is up with guys and diamonds these days. Queer eye seems to have convinced otherwise hetero men to dress up like chicks. You’re diamonds don’t make you look cool, it makes you look gay. Enough with the guys playing barbie dress up already.

Second, there is always something better for my $20,000 than a cell phone. If I found myself with $20,000 I just had to waste, I’d give it to a bum, or buy another motorcycle, or just pay off some random persons credit card bill, whatever.

It’s not an heirloom piece, it’s not getting passed on to my kids kids, it’s a friggin cellphone. It will be obsolete in 1 month, and probably useless in 1 year.

Explain to me again why I’d want to diamond encrust the tech equivalent of toilet paper?

Lay Person says:

Re: #1

Who cares about diamond phones. If people want to buy it, lose it, get it stolen. Who cares it’s all subjective preference.

It’s true though about the queers…not that there’s anything wrong with it but why are heteros now concerned about shaving their body parts?

I don’t know about anyone else but where I grew up, men shaved nothing but their faces. Alot of men in the U.S. are turning into metro/homo sexual types. Either that or they’ve always been queer and are just now opening the closet door.

In any case, why are homos trying to turn heteros into homos?

Lay Person says:

Re: Re: Re: #1

Oh great.

So do you mean to tell me that girls like gays? I know gays don’t like girls because of competition but some still have sex with girls because some gay guys see themselves as uncontrollable sexual beings…

In any event that means that some girls are having sex with possible gay guys. These same girls may have sex with real hetero guys.

One of these hetero guys may be myself. This concerns me that I may get aids from hetero women.

I think I will become a lesbian…it’s just safer.

Borrid Horribleson says:

Diamonds

Diamonds, eh?

We exploit the poor in Africa and devastate the environment to get them out of the ground and for what?

They have extremely important uses in medical and scientific equipment in general.

But hey thank goodness for ‘the market’. Instead we can flog them off for people to have to make their damn phones look pretty.

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