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Jason Butcher/Vertu
Jeeves, bring the Bentley round — I need to make a phone call. Luxury phone flinger Vertu has revealed the Vertu for Bentley smartphone, yours for a mere £10,700.
Formerly owned by Nokia but based in Church Crookham, England, Vertu makes fancy phones for people with more money than sense. Bentley is the legendary English car manufacturer, founded in 1919 and now owned by Volkswagen. The two marques have a five-year deal to produce devices together, and this phone is the first of four planned to bear both names.
Vertu wheels out first Bentley smartphone, for £10,700 (pictures)
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The Vertu for Bentley is a 4G Android phone built from titanium with a 4.7-inch, 1080p sapphire-crystal screen. The frame is wrapped in quilted calf leather in Bentley’s signature shade of Newmarket Tan. The phone is assembled by hand, and opening up the back reveals the signature of the person who put it together. On the front is the famous Bentley winged B logo.
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The sound is handled by Bang & Olufsen and Dolby, with a 13-megapixel Hasselblad camera also on board. Under the bonnet is a 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and 64GB of memory.
Like all Vertu phones, the price doesn’t just pay for the craftsmanship of the phone itself: it also buys you access to Vertu’s concierge service. Hit the concierge button at any time of the day or night and you’re put through to a team dedicated to servicing your every whim no matter how extravagant, ridiculous or expensive.
There’s also a Bentley app loaded on the phone, with such bumpf as Bentley-themed articles and wallpaper, and information about dealers and service centres. More usefully, the app acts as a remote control for the in-car entertainment system of your Bentley Flying Spur luxury sedan.
Other features include wireless charging, near-field communication and Google’s Android 4.4 KitKat operating system.
The Vertu for Bentley is on sale this month, in a limited run of 2,000 devices. In Europe it costs 12,500 euros, which works out at around $16,000 or AU$18,000. But then, if you have to ask the price you probably can’t afford it.
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