International jet-set elite, your new phone is here! That’s right, Vertu and Ferrari have teamed up yet again to produce the phone that serves two important purposes: showing the world that you own a Ferrari, and showing the world that you don’t need a phone that does much besides receiving calls from your accountant. Essentially the recently announced Ascent refresh, this bad boy features a 2-inch QVGA sapphire crystal display and quadband 3G. The case itself is constructed from forged titanium with a matte black PVD finish and the same hand stitched leather as the interior of the car it’s inspired by. But you better be fast! Only 2,011 will be made. (Get it?) Hit the source link to order three or four for yourself.
Samsung’s Nexus S might be the phone that helps take the convex style mainstream, but it’s hardly the first — take Motorola’s crazy UIQ-equipped Z8 and Z10 “banana phones,” for example. Looks like Nokia had at one time planned to introduce a slick curved candybar to the market, too — the so-called 3700 Classic — thanks to a video posted on Vimeo that has all the trappings of a professionally-produced teaser ad. The operating system appears to be Series 40, slotting it below the company’s Symbian fare and putting it in dumbphone territory. Word on the street is that this thing was probably canceled — and though we can’t get too excited about a Series 40 candybar, this could’ve been the pinnacle of Espoo’s Series 40 line had it actually made it to market. Follow the break for the full video.
Now, we know what you’re thinking: “this FCC filing is probably just for the preexisting Nokia 1616 that’s already launched on T-Mobile UK.” Actually, what you’re really thinking is “I couldn’t possibly care less what this is.” Be that as it may, we have reason to believe that Espoo’s ultra low-end candybar — announced late last year — is on its way to T-Mobile USA this time featuring a 2G-only radio and… well, little else. The cheapest prepaid phone presently in Big Magenta’s lineup is $30, so if they could bring this in at, say, $15 or $20, they’d set a new bar. Considering the specs (or lack thereof), that price point seems totally doable.
Can’t afford to put the primal growl of a Ducati 1198R Corse superbike in your garage? Well, consider this the consolation prize: the Italian motorcycle firm has teamed up with Videocon in India to release the V6200 candybar, a rather rugged-looking little beast that features an integrated compass, thermometer, barometer, altimeter, pedometer (thanks to an accelerometer, naturally), GPS, and a UV meter — in other words, every kind of sensor you could possibly want, and then some. It’s got a 2 megapixel camera with dual LED flash and comes bundled with a 4GB memory card, perfect for storing shots of your epic motorbike adventure from Mumbai to New Delhi. If you happen to be in the country, you can apparently find it for around Rs. 9,000 — roughly $200 — which is a good deal (okay, a great deal) less than an actual Ducati. Follow the break for the press release.
Is there any way to sensibly justify Mobiado’s colossally overpriced, underspec’d handsets? Not as far as we can tell — but Mobiado seems to be eminently aware of (and okay with) that, diving yet deeper into the bottomless pit of conspicuous consumption this week with the announcement of the 712 Mokume Gane candybar. What’s “Mokume Gane” mean, you ask? Well, turns out it refers to an ancient Japanese metalworking technique used to craft decorative weapons in which several types of metals are folded into one another to create a wood grain look. Oh, and if you’re wondering why they don’t just simply things a bit and use real wood, the short answer is that Mobiado already does that — see the 712EM model — so this would be for people looking for a little more heft (and presumably, cost). As with most of Mobiado’s models, this is a situation where you’re going to have to hit up a retailer to find out how close to bankruptcy the phone is going to push you.
Is there any way to sensibly justify Mobiado’s colossally overpriced, underspec’d handsets? Not as far as we can tell — but Mobiado seems to be eminently aware of (and okay with) that, diving yet deeper into the bottomless pit of conspicuous consumption this week with the announcement of the 712 Mokume Gane candybar. What’s “Mokume Gane” mean, you ask? Well, turns out it refers to an ancient Japanese metalworking technique used to craft decorative weapons in which several types of metals are folded into one another to create a wood grain look. Oh, and if you’re wondering why they don’t just simply things a bit and use real wood, the short answer is that Mobiado already does that — see the 712EM model — so this would be for people looking for a little more heft (and presumably, cost). As with most of Mobiado’s models, this is a situation where you’re going to have to hit up a retailer to find out how close to bankruptcy the phone is going to push you.
Mobiado’s 105 series of Series 40-based luxury candybars is nothing new — in fact, it’s quite old — but as Vertu has discovered over the years, customers that are looking to spend four or five figures on a phone are apparently often uninterested in smartphone capability for some reason. On that note, the 105 rolls on with the recent introduction of the 105 Damascus, coated in hand-forged Damascus steel from Sweden with sandblasted (or rather, glass bead-blasted) steel buttons and screws to match. That’s neat, but you know what isn’t neat? The 2 megapixel camera, the 2-inch display, or the “more than” 1GB of memory available. Anyhow, enough venting — point is, the recently-announced device has gotten a little hands-on time courtesy of Vietnamese site MaiNguyen, and though the steel edges are admittedly pretty beautiful, they wouldn’t seem to come anywhere near justifying the phone’s heart-stopping $4,500 asking price. Judge for yourself in the video (paired with a hands-on of some neat Damascus steel pen) after the break.
Mobiado’s 105 series of Series 40-based luxury candybars is nothing new — in fact, it’s quite old — but as Vertu has discovered over the years, customers that are looking to spend four or five figures on a phone are apparently often uninterested in smartphone capability for some reason. On that note, the 105 rolls on with the recent introduction of the 105 Damascus, coated in hand-forged Damascus steel from Sweden with sandblasted (or rather, glass bead-blasted) steel buttons and screws to match. That’s neat, but you know what isn’t neat? The 2 megapixel camera, the 2-inch display, or the “more than” 1GB of memory available. Anyhow, enough venting — point is, the recently-announced device has gotten a little hands-on time courtesy of Vietnamese site MaiNguyen, and though the steel edges are admittedly pretty beautiful, they wouldn’t seem to come anywhere near justifying the phone’s heart-stopping $4,500 asking price. Judge for yourself in the video (paired with a hands-on of some neat Damascus steel pen) after the break.
Nokia continued the precedent set by the X3-02 at Nokia World last week by rolling out the C3 Touch and Type, its second Series 40-based handset to make use of that pretty unusual touchscreen / numeric keypad combo. Unlike the X3-02, the new C3 variant features a more traditional keypad layout by dropping the *0# row down below the 789 row, but since T9 only makes use of the first three rows to do its thing, it shouldn’t make much of a different in practice for typing usability. Besides a 2.4-inch QVGA display, you get a 5 megapixel camera, full HSPA, microSD support up to 32GB, and 802.11n (yes, n!) WiFi, making it a surprisingly well-equipped device considering that it falls toward the bottom end of Nokia’s budget-themed Cseries.
We played a bit with the diminutive candybar at Nokia World, and though you can’t really tell from the pictures, we know where Nokia’s saving the money on this one: the build. Put simply, it feels like a pretty cheap phone all the way around with flimsy plastic, a so-so display, and a resistive touch layer with plenty of give. Trust us when we say that’s not a knock — at €145 ($189) fully unlocked and subsidy-free, you’re getting a lot of capability — but would-be buyers should be warned that this doesn’t have anywhere near the premium feel of the N8. That said, it’s extremely thin, light, and small — and the on-screen controls are all plenty large for fat-fingering your way through the UI — so we could see it making a serviceable backup phone even in the developed markets where Nokia doesn’t plan to push a lot of these. Check out the gallery!
When our favorite feature of a phone is that Uno is included in firmware, that should give you a pretty good idea of the kind of device we’re talking about — but regardless, the fact that the ZTE Agent sells for $69 commitment-free from MetroPCS makes it notable, we suppose. The candybar features a 1.3 megapixel cam with video capture, stereo Bluetooth support and a 3.5mm headphone jack (which means you’ve got a music player on board, naturally), microSD expansion, and a 2.4-inch QVGA display. It’s available now, which means that if you’re close to a MetroPCS store, you’re mere minutes away from delivering a brutal Wild Draw Four on your unsuspecting opponents.
