Vertu launches Signature Touch

Luxury phone maker Vertu has launched the latest iteration of its Signature Touch Smartphone. It will be available in stores globally starting 16th October 2015. Pre-sales will be available exclusively at Harrods in the UK, and at selected boutiques globally, between 25 September and 8 October. It will be priced between 6,500 pounds and 13,700 pounds depending on the materials.

The phone is encased in handcrafted, fine leather and grade 5 Titanium and features a cleaner, crisper look, with very little interference with its geometric design, as per the company. It will be available in a range of four colours, across eight product executions - Jet Calf, Garnet Calf, Grape Lizard, Pure Jet Lizard, Jet Alligator, Pure Navy Alligator, Clous de Paris Alligator and Pure Jet Red Gold.

Vertu Signature Touch sports a 5.2-inch Full-HD (1920x1080p) LCD display protected by a 5th Generation sapphire crystal screen.

It's powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 octa-core Processor with 4GB RAM and runs Android 5.1 Lollipop. It has 64GB of internal storage and comes with a 64GB microSD card though the slot supports cards up to 2TB. The phone has high-fidelity 13mmx18mm loudspeakers with Dolby Digital Plus technology and a 3160mAh battery.

Vertu Signature Touch sports a 21MP rear camera with PDAF and dual tone LED flash and support for 4K video recording, and a 2.1MP front-facing camera.

In terms of connectivity, the phone supports 3G, 4G LTE (only Band 3 support in India), Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and GPS.

Nokia to sell luxury phone line Vertu

As it moves to realign its business to compete with Apple and Android, Nokia is reportedly selling off its luxury phone unit. Although Nokia has not confirmed or denied the rumors, the Financial Times is reports that the Finnish handset maker has hired Goldman Sachs to broker the sale of Vertu.

Nokia launched Vertu in 1998. The company sells phones that cost upward of $5,000 and as much as $315,000, rivaling exotic car brands and fine watches. The phones are made by hand, and often include diamonds and hand-stitched leather.

Functional Art:
Indeed, Nokia doesn't offer specific earnings for Vertu in its quarterly reports. But the Financial Times reports the unit drives between $268 million and $402 million annually. Vertu has flagship boutiques in London, Paris, Milan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York and Las Vegas. The phones are sold in more than 50 countries.

Vertu has relied on exclusivity - along with celebrity endorsements from the likes of songwriter Seal, actress Michelle Yeoh and chef Alain Ducasse - to demonstrate its appeal to the uber rich. One of the key features of Vertu phones is the Concierge, a personal dedicated lifestyle assistance service that's available 24/7 in any language. When users press a dedicated button on the phone, the concierge answers and provides anything from gift ideas to restaurant reservations.

"Vertu not only doesn't follow the trends and it has fairly clunky handsets with very limited functionality. But Vertu has come out with limited editions phones in sets of six," said Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis. "People would buy all six of them at $8,000 or $9,000 a pop as a collection. It's important to note that Vertu phones are a functional piece of art."

Vertu's Fate:
Vertu is catching up with the times, though. The luxury handset maker introduced the Constellation Quest a year ago. Constellation is a QWERTY device that offers the latest business tools. The home screen is minimalist, displaying only the essentials users hand pick. A Vertu design signature analogue clock automatically adjusts for the world traveler.

Vertu boutiques offer Apple-like customer service, helping customers configure their phone settings to suit individual preferences, including e-mail accounts, information feeds and social networking. The phone also comes with a cadre of other services aimed at affluent consumers, like a global digest and language-specific content feeds, as well as ongoing tech support.

It's possible that Vertu can continue being successful just selling devices that only make phone calls because the phones are personal accessory status symbols.

Vertu to launch mobile service in Japan

Luxury mobile phone brand Vertu, has revealed that it will begin offering mobile services in Japan. Vertu is owned by Finnish cellphone giant Nokia.

The Finnish company will become a so-called Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), thus becoming the first mobile phone maker to encroach on the Japanese service provider domain.
Vertu is known for making expensive, handcrafted handsets that are often embellished with titanium, gold, jewels and crystal.

Vertu's MVNO service will be hosted by Nokia Siemens Networks from its Singapore hosting centre which is capable of servicing customers throughout the Asia Pacific region.

It was last November when Nokia pulled out of the Japanese market due to disappointing sales, but chose to leave its high-end Vertu brand in the country.