There are Vertu shops in New York and Las Vegas, and you can find them in fancy jewelers and Torneau, a high-end chain of watch stores. They’re well-made, from a physical point of view, but obviously low-tech (until a couple of years ago, they were basically calculator-display phones with number pads).
They were always unbelievably tasteless, too – and it’s not just about the bling materials. The design is extremely masculine, all sharp edges and scales and angles. Things have improved in the last year or two (such as the Constellation) but even then it’s just gone from the “Robot dragon cock” look to the “Nieman Marcus cigarette case circa 1977” look.
I just remembered Alfred Bester’s novel The Stars My Destination, in which free, planet-wide teleportation becomes available to every human being. The rich and would-be-rich immediately decide that fast, efficient travel is super gauche and lame and for proles and set to ranking themselves by who can afford the shittiest transportation. Up-and-coming businessmen take jet planes; the established wealthy hire cross-country limos; the absolute richest-of-the-rich build international rail lines dedicated to luxury steam trains, and are met at the station by a horse and buggy.
I’d always thought the satire was a bit over-the-top, silly me…
That’s the thing – it’s different from the crappy luxury watch because the watch will still perform its absolute function well enough. You can’t tell if a luxury watch is technically crappy from looking at it, and an average consumer could win or inherit one and enjoy it their whole lives without ever really noticing what was bad about it. They’d just fix the time every few weeks.
A Vertu phone, however, immediately exposes its functional poor quality and obsolescence. For example, until a couple of years ago, you couldn’t surf the web on Vertu phones.
You could call the concierge to surf it for you and tell you what was on it, though.
Radiation hardened computers (Incredibly expensive, and are usually 386 or 486, (larger process size is part of the hardening))
Also, I’d hate the phone featured in the photo. All of those grooves and crevices and texture would pick up so much dust, lint and moisture that the phone would be utterly disgusting in a few weeks (at least in my pockets.)
