Most
expensive cell phone-world record set by GoldVish phone
[March
30] GENEVE, Switzerland-- GoldVish
phone, a mobile phone made out of 18-carat white gold and
features 1,800 diamonds totaling 120 carats, priced at 1 million
euros, or about $1.3 million, set the world record for the
Most Expensive cell phone.
A Russian businessman bought Le Million for his
wife last September at a luxury goods fair in Cannes, France.
( enlarge
photo
)
Geneva-based GoldVish
has plenty of expensive phones in its lineup, including models
with gold plating and diamond-studded cases.
Americans who don't want to actually get on a
jet to buy a jet-setting phone can still have their needs
sated.
Vertu
,
a subsidiary of Nokia (nyse: NOK ), the world's largest cellphone
manufacturer, is the most established of the ultra-luxury
handset firms.
Unlike some niche manufacturers that cater mostly
to European and Asian markets, it's fairly easy to try out
and buy Vertu
phones in the U.S. In New York and Chicago, for example, they're
on display at Nokia retail stores. And they're distributed
across the U.S. to high-end department stores like Barneys
and watch shops like Tourneau.
Last year, Vertu
teamed up with French jeweler Boucheron to make the second-most-expensive
phone on our list, a limited-edition series of eight $310,000
handsets sporting red, jewel-encrusted snakes.
The Signature Cobra includes two diamonds,
two emerald eyes and 439 rubies snaking around an 18-carat
rose gold case.
