Top 10 Most Expensive Mobile Phones in the World

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 (£540,540)

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 (£167,567)

Vertu is now taking orders for the Signature Cobra, designed by French jeweler Boucheron, but you had better be quick as only 8 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 (£62,162).



3. Sony Ericsson Black Diamond = $300,000 (£162,162)

Apparently the Black Diamond will be available in 2007, not from Sony Ericsson but by a company called VIPN. Initially only 5 unique numered pieces will be available for the unbelievable price of, wait for it… $300,000.
With regards to the specifications, don’t expect anything remarkable for your money. It will have Quad-band with Wi-Fi, 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.



4. Vertu Diamond = $88,000 (£47,567)

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 of the handsets are being produced, the most expensive believed to be worth an estimated £50,000.


5. Motorola V220 Special Edition = £28,000 ($51,800)

Austrian designer Peter Aloisson, has taken a standard Motorola, studded it with 1,200 diamonds and added a keyboard inlaid with 18 carat gold. The outcome is a £28,000 handset, suitable only for footballers and film stars!


6. Gold Edition Nokia 8800 Phone = $2,700 (£1,459)

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 wont! The features found on the Gold Edition are the standard 8800 features, which are pretty basic. It includes a 0.5 Mega pixel SVGA camera, 64 MB of internal memory, 64 voice polyphonic rigntones, FM Radio, Mp3 Player, video recording and 180 mins talktime. However, the Gold Edition does includes a special edition box and charging dock!


7. Mobiado Professional EM (wood) = $1,900 (£1,027)

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 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!


8. Bang & Olufsen (Samsung) Serene = $1,250 (£675)

Bang & Olufsen hooked up with Samsung to design the sleek but unconventional Serene. Its 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 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.



9. Lamborghini 8800 Sirocco from Nokia = $To be announced

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 font 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 being made. It will also feature Lamborghini graphics as wallpapers, screensavers, ringtones, and even has a short documentary video about the Lamborghini.


10. Gresso Luxury Phone = £expensive

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.

Nokia N900 breaks all the records

Did you have a glance on the latest Nokia N900, it breaks all the records and is on the top list. This QWERTY keyboard touchscreen phone has loads of application for windows opening and running concurrently. Nokia mobile phones are always the best and in demand, and so is this one, featuring a strong ARM Cortex-A8 processor and an application memory about 1GB, that’s great!

You can get fast internet connectivity with almost 10/2HSPA and WLAN both. This phone is next generation phone in the progression of Maemo software. It also compliments other software like Symbian. This smartphone suffices a memory of 32 GB storage and can be expanded to almost 48GB with your micro SD card. This gorgeous phone will be on Sale from October with a price tag of $717 (2,580 Dirhams).

Are mobile phones replacing laptops?

In October 1983 Bob Barnett, a former president of Ameritech Mobile Communications, telephoned Alexander Graham Bell's grandson from a Chrysler convertible at an American football field in Chicago. It was the world's first commercial mobile phone call.

We can only guess the topic of conversation but it is a safe bet that neither expected the call to change the lives of 4.1bn phone users worldwide.
Over the past decade mobiles have undergone another revolution. Phones are no longer just devices to make and receive calls and texts, they are also for checking emails, Facebook and Twitter as well as browsing the internet.
News last week that Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, is to launch a new "super-smartphone" and start making mini-laptops, is the dawn of a third revolution, which could lead to a blurring of the lines between phones and laptops.
Smartphones such as Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry, are so powerful, users are finding themselves using their phones to check emails and the latest football scores even when their laptop is lying to hand.
"Sometimes it's just too much effort to lift the lid of your laptop, when you're phone is almost as quick at browsing the web," says Mike Brook, editor of T3 technology magazine.
Apple, which appears to have almost psychic powers in predicting the next big technology trends, took a gamble two years ago by branching out into mobile phones following the phenomenal success of its iPod music player.
So far the company has sold 21.2m iPhones worldwide, including more than 1m in the UK.
Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, highlighted the success of the iPhone in helping the company achieve record profits of $1.23bn (£747m) for the three months to the end of June - Apple's most successful non-Christmas quarter in its 32-year history.
Following Apple's success, a string of other computer companies, including Dell, are entering the smart-phone market.
Dell's founder, Michael Dell, had previously ruled out ever entering the mobile phone business because Nokia's 40pc market share would be too hard to crack.
But earlier this month he confirmed long-running rumours that Dell plans to launch a smartphone running on Google's Android operating system.
The lure of big profits achieved by Apple and RIM has also attracted some unexpected technology brands into the smartphone mix.
Garmin, the satellite navigation company, launched a touchscreen mobile, which specialises in navigation, in the Far East this summer. The device is expected in Europe next year.
Despite other new challengers, including Palm's Pre and Taiwan's HTC Hero, the iPhone remains "the phone to beat" and all the traditional mobile phone makers – Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, LG and Samsung – are desperately struggling to compete.
Smartphone sales grew by 27pc in the second quarter according to analysts at Gartner, the research house, and are expected to account for up to 70pc of all phones sold in Europe by 2012.
At the same time sales of middle-of-the-range phones are expected to drop for only the second time since the industry began. So, the established players need to act fast to bring out serious challengers or risk losing the market to the upstarts with PC-pedigree.
Nokia had been caught sleeping at the wheel without any handset close to the iPhone and its hastily-produced N97 has been described as a "dud" by experts. The Finnish company has seen its market share drop from 39.5pc to 36.8pc.
But Nokia is fighting back. Last week it revealed its latest attempt to regain ground lost to Apple's iPhone. Nokia said its touchscreen N900 will hit the shops in October priced at about £400, although it could be much cheaper depending on contract terms.
Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's executive vice president of markets, said: "What we have is something that is fusing the power of the computer, the internet and the mobile phone, and it is great to see that it is evolving in exciting ways."
Nokia's chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo denies that Apple is dictating the company's strategy. He said Nokia is switching the business model away from mobile phone sales towards services such as mobile banking, games and music.
"It's not simply fighting against your competitors like Apple, it's claiming new ground. It's claiming no-man's land," he said.
However, the company is pushing into the backyard of its PC-making rivals by launching its own mini-laptops into the fiercely competitive but fast-growing netbook market.
Nokia said it will provide more information on its Booklet 3G – which is just 10 inches wide, less than one inch thick and weighs only 1.25kg – at its glitzy Nokia World conference in Stuttgart this week.
The company, which used to make everything from Wellington boots to gas masks, pulled out of the PC market in 1991 after it lost ground to larger rivals.
"This is Nokia fighting back a little against Apple and Google's invasion into its territory," said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner. "It's a clever move by Nokia as it can use its established route to market through mobile phone operators and shops."
She said the mini-laptop would probably be sold as a second contract alongside a Nokia mobile phone, a plan which would be popular with mobile phone operators looking to expand customers' data use.
"These moves by Nokia just highlight how the mobile and laptop markets are converging," Mr Brook said. "No one ever thought the marriage of the phone and laptop would come together, but it looks like they just might."

Source: Telegraph

Most expensive mobile phone ever

Goldvish “Le million” = $1,000,000 ( 3,670,000 Dirhams )

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 (93,952 Dirhams).

Specifications:

Physical:
- 120 CT VVS-1 diamonds
- Solid 18 ct. white solid 18k gold casing
- total weight 350 gr
- Advanced dynamic high res. 176x220 (262k) TFT display
- High capacity Li-Lion 950mAh battery- Up to 400 hours standby time- Sapphire glass display
- Exclusive crocodile leather inlays (( for backside ( available in 12 colours)) Connectivity:
- Worldwide GSM coverage 850 - 900 - 1800 - 1900 MHz (Quad band)
- GPRS/EDGE Class 10
- USB- Bluetooth
Features:
- Photo/video camera with optimised (8x zoom, 2 mega pixel) CMOS lens
- Comprehensive MP3 player
- Worldwide FM radio receiver
- Stereo sound
- PC interchangeable 2 Gb SD-memory for songs, pictures, movies
- Personal organizer- Audio recorder- Email/SMS/EMS/MMS
- Conference call
- Hands-free calling

Source: GoldVish

Nokia Aeon Concept Phone Wants To Be Touched

Showing up in the R & D section of its company’s website, the Nokia Aeon Concept Phone features a full touch screen surface that eliminates the use of the traditional keypad and brings its users a further step to futuristic technology.
Looking great with its extremely sleek and sexy look, Nokia should use some perfected material that doesn’t leave fingerprints on Aeon’s touch screen display to keep the Aeon looking ever glamorous. Besides, no one would want to spend half his or her time wiping it.
3 more pictures of the Nokia Aeon Concept Phone after the jump.

An Early Peek at the Nokia N900

Nokia released details about its first-ever Linux-based smart phone.
The Finnish cellphone maker will formally launch the N900 smart phone in October for about $713 ( 2,566 Dirhams). It features a 3.5-inch touch screen, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 32 GB of storage, 1 GB of app memory, and Wi-Fi, among other features that prompted oohs and aahs in the blogosphere.

And unlike Nokia’s other phones that run on the Symbian operating system, the N900’s Linux-based Maemo operating system, which means that the smart phone will operate more like a PC. The company is touting it as a mobile computer “that is fusing the power of the computer, the Internet and the mobile phone,” Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia’s executive vice president for markets, said in a statement.
The move to switch to a Linux OS is likely a strategy to give Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android a run for their money.
It could also help Nokia snag a piece of the ever-lucrative mobile application market through Nokia’s Ovi app store, which launched last May. Nokia also announced Wednesday that next year it would launch its own mobile payment service, Nokia Money, which would allow users to make micropayments via text and mobile Internet. But some journalists wondered about the wisdom of Nokia’s decision to emphasize both Symbian and Linux. “What I think I want to see is Nokia licensing Palm’s webOS, used on the Pre,” wrote PC World’s David Coursey. “It makes little sense for Nokia to try to turn both Linux and Symbian into high-end players. But, stranger things have happened, though they haven’t been too successful.”

And Wired’s Charlie Sorrel said the verdict on the N900 will come down to the software, “a place where Nokia has arguable lost its way of late,” though he did note that “the pictures look promising, and the light-on-dark interface is both clear and gorgeous.”
Meanwhile, in Twitterland, the topic “Nokia N900″ was one of the trends du jour Thursday, with users tweeting such varied observations as: “The Nokia N900 is a gorgeous piece of handiwork,” “Just read about the new Nokia N900, but I’m still tempted by the iPhone 3Gs,” and “Nokia’s N900 looks pretty sweet. If only they could get their act together and find an American carrier to subsidize it.”

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Business mobile phone Nokia E97

If you are looking for business mobile phones than I think Nokia E97, latest design by Fabien Nauroy can suit your requirements.
This design have very unique features and envelope look make it more attractive. With this there is a LCD which can pull out from the phone and can be used as storage device. There is also facility of Dual Sim as well.
E97 have got the look which can be used as business mobile phones and can be handy as sporty look. Smooth operations and easy to use is another plus point of Nokia E97. There is one small screen about the keyboard and can display all normal functions and incoming and outgoing details.

Apple’s upcoming New Design iPhone iSmart with New Keypad

For iPhone lovers, here is another update about the upcoming Apple iPhone iSmart with rather new design and keypad. This would be first time you would be seeing iPhone with keypad and surely it’s gonna mesmerize you.Apple iPhone iSmart has a 3 inch TFT display with a 352 x 416 pixels resolution and surprisingly it features push email with MS Exchang that comes with a TV-Out port and Java games. Also there’s access to AppStore where you can directly download and install the applications.

iSmart is equipped with GPS receiver and there’s a built-in 5 megapixel autofocus camera and VGA video recording.
Features at glance:3” TFT display (350 x 416 resolution)Wi-FiGPS Receiver8/16GB of internal memoryProximity sensorAmbient light sensorAccelerometer5 megapixel camera with autofocus and VGA video recording.

Glass cell phone – an amazing concept!

The concept of transparent mobile phones might create a stir in the gizmo world. This fluid concept phone design has come up from Mac Funamizu, a Tokyo based designer.

Totally transparent, this Vitreous cell phone’s keypad lights up when you turn it on. All functionalities can be carried this way only.
A gadget of wonder, this can be an amazing accessory to possess. Though, you need to remind yourself of handle with care warning time and again. The fingerprints on it might give it a frowsy look.



But it still has the aptitude to be a modish mobile unit, a novel piece on your office desk and a stunner in your home decor.

Ambiguous of its technical details, this concept if actualizes would be in vogue as it has the charm to be the most popular notion in the realm of mobile phones!

Apple to Investigate Exploding iPhones

Lithium-ion batteries are our friends. They have a great energy-to-weight ratio, no memory effect and they don't lose a charge quickly when not in use. About one percent of these batteries is recalled due to problems.

Unfortunately, these problems can include overheating, spontaneous combustion and explosions. A French teen has reported hearing a loud hissing noise before his iPhone screen shattered during a call. The photo above shows the screen, which he says launched a piece of glass into his eye.
Another iPhone owner in France also reported a shattering iPhone after hearing the story. This comes on top of news earlier this month that an iPhone locked in a car in the Netherlands caught fire and burned a gaping hole in the front passenger seat.
So are iPhones all over the world going to self-destruct at midnight on Steve Jobs' birthday? Apple will not comment.
The European Commission has been in touch with the company and had a news conference about the issue. According to their spokesperson, "Apple have come back to us... and what they've said to us is that they consider these are isolated incidents. They don't consider that there's a general problem."
"They're trying to get more information on the specific details of those incidents (reported in the media) and they will do tests as necessary to investigate the possible cause."
A representative of Apple Europe stated, "We are aware of these reports and we are waiting to receive the iPhones from the customers. Until we have the full details, we don't have anything further to add."
Several million notebook computer batteries have been recalled in the past few years by companies such as Sony, Lenovo and Dell due to the risk of overheating. Some of these defective batteries were used in Apple iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 computers.
Apple is also not the only company who has faced lithium-ion battery problems in its mobile phones. Nokia recalled 46 million batteries in 2007 after a Nokia N91 exploded in the Philippines.

iPhone outsold all Windows Mobile phones in Q2 2009

Apple's iPhone held onto a 13.7% share of global smartphone unit sales in the second quarter, outpacing Microsoft's Windows Mobile, which now claims just 9% of the market, according to Canalys."Apple has revolutionized the smart phone sector, leapfrogging more experienced rivals," Canalys senior analyst Pete Cunningham said in the company's report. Sales in the second quarter did not include much of the surge in new sales spurred by the release of the iPhone 3GS.In the North American market, the iPhone grabbed a 23% share of smartphones sold, despite being tied to a single carrier in the US. Apple's US debut occurred months before sales were expanded to other countries, and international sales of iPhone really began a year later with the launch of the iPhone 3G. RIM held a commanding 52% share of US smartphones.In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Nokia maintained a 64% share while Apple took second place with 13.6%, followed by third place RIM with 10.3%. Those numbers indicate Apple has been much better at competing internationally against Nokia than RIM has, despite its having been in the smartphone business for nearly a decade compared to Apple's barely two year old iPhone assault.Worldwide, Nokia still leads smartphone sales with 44.3% of the market, but that represents a significant slide over the last few years. As recently as 2006, Nokia's Symbian platform accounted for over 72% of smartphones sold; now it represents just 50.3%.Nokia has particularly lost ground among business users due to the popularity of RIM's BlackBerry, which now claims a 20.9% share of smartphones. Nokia recently announced a "partnership" with Microsoft, which largely just involves porting Pocket Office apps to Symbian in a bid to make Nokia's devices more competitive with the BlackBerry.


Source: Apple Insider

Nokia announces the Nokia 6760 Slide

Nokia 6760 main features

Weight: 124.3g
Dimensions: 97.6 x 58 x 15.6mm
EGSM 850/900/1800/1900
Dual-band WCDMA/HSDPA 900/2100. Max 384kbps upload / 3.6 Mbps download
2.4 inches display with 16 million colours and 240 x 320 pixel resolution
QWERTY keyboard
FM radio
A-GPS and Nokia Maps
SMS, MMS, Email
Bluetooth
3.2 megapixel front camera with 4x digital zoom. Video recording and front camera
Talk time: 5 hours
Standby time: 500 hours
It is also interesting to notice that Nokia has a paragraph in the specifications showing the environmental features for the 6760. For example that the materials are free of PVC, the device is up to 80% recyclable, package is made of up to 25% recycled material and it is 100% recyclable.

Source: esato

Today Sony Ericsson announced the T715 slider phone with a 2.2 inch display and 3.2 megapixel camera

The Sony Ericsson T715 has support for microSD memory card following the trend started by the recently announced Sony Ericsson Satio, Aino and Yari models to not use Memory Stick cards. The T715 are bringing us back to the old name strategy where consumers knowing the Sony Ericsson mobile phone range should be able to place the 715 high up in the T-series. The Sony Ericsson web site compares the phone with F305, Naite and T280 which are considered low- to mid-end models. The final retail price for T715 is currently not known.
Sony Ericsson emphasize the following for T715
Elegant and compact slider
Large keypad and font size
3G network connection
Large 2.2 inch screen
Smart desktop and birthday reminders
3.2 megapixel camera with photo light
The display are claimed to have good readability even in direct sunligh. This is of course a feature we should expect from every mobile phone.
Sony Ericsson T715 features
Size:; 91.5 x 48 x 14.9 mm
Weight: 96.5g
Display: 240 x 320 pixel, 262.144 colour TFT, 2.2 inch
90MB memory. Expandable with SanDisk microSD card
Talk time: Up to 10 hours
Standby time: Up to 400 hours
Talk time UMTS: Up to 4 hours
Standby time UMTS: Up to 350 hours
Video call time: Up to 3 hours
Networks
T715
GSM/GPRS/EDGE/850/900/1800/1900
UMTS HSPA/2100
T715a
GSM/GPRS/EDGE/850/900/1800/1900
UMTS HSPA 850/1900/2100
Camera
3.2 megapixel camera with 3.2x digital zoom
Video recording
LED light
Video recording
Music
Album art
TrackID
PlayNow
MP3/AAC
Bluetooth stereo
Web
Access NetFront web browser
Photo feeds
Web feeds
Messaging
SMS, MMS IM
Email
Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync
Entertainment
Java
FM Radio with RDS
Video straming
YouTube
Location-base services
Geo tagging of photos (cell-id)
Google Maps
Connectivity
Bluetooth
Modem
PictBridge printing
Syncronization
USB mass storage
You will not find the T715 stores yet. Sony Ericsson expect the T715 to be available in the third quarter with the colour variants Galaxy Silver and Rouge Pink