Limited-edition iPhone 5 with gold, diamond finish available

If you thought that the iPhone 5 with its price tag, was as far as one could go with the word 'premium' or ‘expensive', you have to read this. Liverpool designer, Stuart Hughes has his own version of the premium iPhone 5, that is all gold and diamond. Reportedly, Hughes’ version of the latest iPhone has been decked in 18-carat gold and has gold and diamond finishing. Turn the phone over and you see the recognisable Apple logo, encrusted in diamonds. Hughes has on offer a limited edition of 100 handsets of this variety. Hughes' version of the iPhone 5 priced at a mind numbing £21,995 (around Rs 18,76,888). 

An excerpt from Hughes' website reads, “This beautiful handset took weeks of detailed intricate work to re-create the original chasis of the iPhone in solid gold all of which was started and finished by hand, also a full gold dressing for the rear section with the logo in solid gold with 53 flawless diamonds amounting to 1ct. This masterpiece boasts a massive circa of 128 grams of 18ct gold. The result was outstanding even down to the precise polishing to reveal its most beautiful harmonious appearance. The handset is 64gb and is available as a ltd edition of only 100.”

The handset as on Hughes' site

This isn’t Hughes’ first attempt at adding bling to technology. Last year, he grabbed headlines when he made the Stuart Hughes’ version of the iPad 2, a snazzier sibling of the regular iPad 2, which you might want to own if you have £5,000,000 on you. For the rest of us, the iPad 2 Gold History Edition was just as exquisite, as it could possibly get. However, with the iPad 2 Gold History Edition, gold and diamonds weren’t all; it came with a hint of history. The Apple logo that carefully rested at the back of Hughes’ version of the iPad 2 had been set with 12.5 carats of flawless diamonds, 53 of them encrusted to form the signatory Apple logo. The 24k gold logo has been set at the back, weighing a total of 2,000 grams. Its front frame has a touch of history to it. It has been made out of the oldest existing rock, Ammolite. Apparently, on the front frame of this iPad 2, pieces of a T-Rex dinosaur’s thigh bone had been used, which according to Hughes, was splintered and shaved into the rock, and then given a jewel finish. Adding some bling is the single-cut, 8.5-carat flawless diamond beautifully set in the centre, surrounded by 12 other flawless diamonds. 

In the meanwhile, here is a quick look at the specifications of the iPhone 5:

• 4-inch, 326ppi Retina display at 1136 x 640 pixels
• GPRS, EDGE, EV-DO, HSPA, HSPA+, DC-HSDPA, LTE and Wi-Fi
• GPS
• Bluetooth
• 8 megapixel camera with 1080p HD recording, 720p front-facing camera
• 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions