Vertu's first 'luxury' Android phone appears in photo leaks

Update: A Vertu spokeswoman contacted TechRadar following the publication of this story, saying that while the company was unable to confirm any new product details at this time, it plans to make an "official announcement" on Feb. 12.

The announcement sounds to be the first of many international happenings for the company, though it will start out in London.

The spokeswoman also had this to say: "Some of the information that you have recently reported on regarding Vertu is inaccurate, including proposed pricing, and we look forward sharing more details with you in the coming weeks."

We should have more details on the product (or whatever Vertu has in store) in just a few weeks, including an idea on pricing from the company itself, so stay tuned for more.

Original story continues below...

The first Android phone from Vertu, the British phone maker that sells crappy "luxury" devices with diamonds and rubies glued to them, reportedly appeared on Wednesday in some leaked photos.

The photos, which first surfaced on Japanese site Blog of Mobile, appear to be official press shots, not shaky-cam leaks.

And, as Engadget pointed out, the name "Ti" and the model number RM-828V have popped up recently on benchmark and database sites ranging from GLBenchmark to Bluetooth SIG.

In other words, this leak seems legit, and an official reveal may be close.

Vertu Constellation Ti price

Vertu's got a decent racket going: by tacking gemstones and gold plating onto mediocre devices, the company can sell them to uber-rich people who care about status more than actual value.

Good on them, we say - where there's a market, there's a way.

For its part, there's no indication of how much the Constellation Ti will cost, though going by previous Vertu devices it could be anywhere from £3,500 (US$5,526, AU$5,303) to £200,000 (US$315,000, AU$303,000).

Previous Constellation models have come in on the lower end of that spectrum, though that's still as much as a decent used car.

What about the actual phone?

Based on various sources around the web, the Vertu Constellation Ti will likely sport Android 4.0.4: Ice Cream Sandwich, an 800 x 480 display, and a 1.5GHz processor.

In other words, meh. In case you had any doubts, Vertu owners really are just paying for the brand.

Besides the new physical Android buttons, the Constellation Ti fits right in with past Vertu Constellation phones.

Russian retailer spblux.ru even lists four different variations of the Ti, which you can see in the image above. One has a little gold thing, two feature leather, and one has an alligator pattern.

The Constellation Ti may show up at MWC in February, so keep an eye out if you've got a few thousand bucks in your pocket and you literally own every other thing in the world.

Via Engadget