$17,100 Bentley Smartphone

[nrkc99]

 

Big touchscreens, skinny bodies, health-tracking and slow-motion geegaws — your new smartphone may be nice, but it's hopelessly bourgeoisie. How is a member of the 0.1 percent supposed to stand out in this world when billions of people have the same few smartphones pressed to their ears? Thank Mammon Bentley has brought forth today the Bentley of smartphones, available to only 2,000 of the planet's tastemakers for just $17,100.

The tech specs of the phone built by British high-end maker Vertu — 4.7-inch sapphire screen, Android-powered Snapdragon chipset, 64 Gb of memory, 13-megapixel camera — matter about as much as the lugnut spacing on a Continental GT V8. The point of such devices is to make its owner feel like he or she holds a unique object that others can appreciate from afar, and for that Vertu and Bentley focused on the style; from the diamond-stitched calfskin leather exterior to the knurled titanium and ceramic "ear pillow" meant to evoke the knobs and handles inside the Bentley.

And Vertu — which has built phones for Ferrari — knows enough about luxury to understand it's a service more than a good. For the price, it wouldn't be sufficient to know that the ringtones in your pocket were performed on spec by the London Symphony, or that Hasselblad tuned the camera, so the phone also comes with subscriptions to concierge and security services. If you party too hard on a yacht and want to recover from the back seat, a chauffeur is just a phone call away. If you need a lawyer for what happened on the boat, that's probably in there too