Four uber-expensive smartphones to compete with the $10,000 Vertu Ti

How much are you willing to spend on a phone? Vertu thinks about $10,000 should be enough to get you a phone running your father’s Ice Cream Sandwich. That’s about 9,900 dollars more than what I am willing to shell out for the Vertu Ti.

See, Vertu is lazy. They’ll encrust a few diamonds, mine a new precious metal to craft the phone’s body with and slap on the sapphire crystal glass display that all rich people are absolutely dying for. However, they didn’t think that maybe people with 10-large lying around in their couch cushions might actually want a decent phone with all the nice features of the relatively blue-collared Samsung Galaxy S III and iPhone.

So instead you get ICS, a dual-core processor, three cramped hardware buttons on the bottom of the 3.7-inch WVGA display, an 8MP main camera with flash and 1.3MP front facing camera. It also has 64GB of internal memory. But Vertu is not the only luxury smartphone that will make you break the bank. For the truly well-heeled, there are other choices as well.

Tag Heuer Link
The Tag Heuer Link actually is a luxury smartphone that looks classy. It features a mix of premium metals including 18-carat rose gold and titanium, while materials like calfskin leather, carbon leather, alligator leather etc. wrap themselves around the body.

Tag Heuer Link

Tag Heuer has included a slim piece of gem stone on the side which hides away the phone’s micro USB port, SIM card slot and microSD card slot. Other specs include a 3.5-inch display with a WVGA resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. A nice touch is the Gorilla Glass protection. Camera on the back is a 5 megapixel autofocus one and amazingly, the phone runs Android 2.2 Froyo! The specs do not sound that great and certainly not worth the $6700 that Tag Heuer are asking for it. Seriously, Tag? You expect us to shell out that much money for a phone with Froyo?

Ulysse Nardin Chairman 2
The Chairman 2 is the world's most expensive Android smartphone beyond doubt. Unless, you want to point us to another $50,000 Android handset. The luxury watch makers have found space for a touchscreen as well as a hardware keypad on the device. The company’s horological tradition comes to the fore on several design choices, like the volume controls, which look like adjustment dials on a watch and the whole steampunk aesthetic with faux cogs bared on the back around the camera lens. There’s even a kinetic rotator for charging the battery.

Ulysse Nardin Chairman 2

The Chairman has a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen, a Freescale i.MX processor, an 8 megapixel camera, a fingerprint reader for keeping your data secure, 32GB internal memory and HD video playback. Of course it ran Gingerbread at the time of its launch in 2010 and its actual price varies from $12,800 to $50,000 depending on what luxuriant materials wrap the Chairman 2’s body.

Lamborghini T700
Famed car makers Lamborghini joined hands with Prada and fellow Italians Ferrari to create the T700. Now such a collaboration would usually get our stamp of approval, but the T700 will divide opinions. You will either love or loathe its crocodile skin back and the gold front. The body of the phone is said to be crafted from diamond cut metal and of course, sapphire glass covers the touchscreen. The phone comes in five colors with just 650 editions per shade.

Lamborghini T700

The smartphone comes with a 3.7-inch display, a 5 megapixel rear camera, 4GB of internal storage and a measly 1,400 mAh battery to support the device throughout the day. This one also runs Gingerbread leading us to believe luxury phone makers have somehow colluded and decided to only use outdated software. And you will have to break your Fixed Deposit to the tune of $2,750 to get one of these.

Tag Heuer Racer
Something about smartphones and watch makers that just doesn’t seem to gel. The second Tag Heuer on this list, the Racer, is not bad looking, but still rather clunky for a sleek smartphone. The back is certainly eye-catching and it has an armoured look to it. But we are not sure how much shock or pressure it can withstand.

Tag Heuer Racer

The makers say, it was inspired by a Formula 1 car and features polycarbonate and titanium accents, a shockproof chassis made out of rubber, a customisable 3D-interface and predictably runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Other low-end specs on the $3,700 handset include a 1GHz processor and a 3.5-inch display with a WVGA 800 x 480 resolution.

It certainly makes for poor reading, but we figure these phones are more of status or style symbols rather than high-end gagdets. It will surely be interesting to see if Vertu or the likes ever release a phone that justifies the price tag, not only with the materials used, but also with the hardware inside the phone. Until then, we think you should hold on to your gold-plated iPhone 5.