If you’ve ever wanted to see what your initials would look like on a custom Vertu Monogram Constellation, but the idea of walking into a boutique didn’t appeal, then this is for you. Vertu has created an online design tool, and you can use it to customize the exterior of three of their phones to your heart’s content.
You’ve got to hand it to my friend and fellow gadget magpie, Drew Guttadore! He knows how curious I’ve been about the new ~$6,000 Android-based Vertu Constellation; because he’s also been curious about it, he recently went hands-on with one so that he could share his initial impressions … on everything but the actual Android/Vertu experience. Curious? Read on!
I have owned four different Vertu phones over the past decade, and while I can’t quite bring myself to spring for another one (yet) — I’m not gonna lie — I miss owning one. There is something to their saying that “Nothing will ever feel the same”. Vertu phones are handmade of the finest metals, ceramics, and leathers, and they are basically works of art that also happen to be rock solid phones. The concierge feature is a big part of why they cost so much, but the odd thing is that even though I had access to the service…
Vertu is now taking reservations for the newest Constellation, their first touch-screen model, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the Nokia C7. Okay, the uncanny resemblance is actually an intentional resemblance, as I have it on direct authority from a Vertu rep that this is the phone the Constellation is “most like”. Now obviously it is nothing new for Vertu to offer a phone with many similarities to currently available Nokias (witness the Vertu Constellation Quest), but in my ownership experience there are always a few disparities between the Nokia version and the Vertu version, and it bothers me. Let’s start with the…
Last October we posted about the then upcoming Vertu Constellation Quest, Vertu’s first QWERTY keyboard phone, a phone which compared to all of their previous models was a veritable smartphone. Half-jokingly (or perhaps presciently), Larry stated that it might be my next phone, and when we were in Vegas for CES this January, I stopped by the Vertu boutique, so I could see one in person. I thought it was lovely; I asked for a catalog, I fantasized about putting one on my American Express for a minute or two … and then I stepped away from the boutique and…
Vertu Constellation Ayxta If you noticed last week, we did an unboxing on the Vertu Constellation Ayxta. A gorgeous new flip phone that costs oodles and oodles.. Well this week its broken! I put one of my 3 SIMs in it to start using it and absorbing it into my daily repertoire. And then it started happening! I had synched the phone to my PC (Ok Mac Book Pro running Windows XP) and loaded my contacts and a few pertinent pics and was very excited to get started! I turned it on and the screen clock on the inside started…
Vertu, the high-end Nokia luxury handset company, released a flip version of their phone towards the end of 2009 and I finally got my hands on one! So this is the unboxing view, and I’ll come back in a few weeks and do a proper review of the phone whilst in use. I purchased the unit from one of the jewellery stores here in Sydney after much haggling, and carried my plain brown box through the city back to the train stop. I found it a bit odd to carry a large shopping bag from a fine jewellery store through…
It’s not every day that I get to unbox an $8000 mobile phone…oh heck, who am I trying to kid?! Up until a few days ago, I could honestly say that I had never unboxed any device that cost so much. But through a twisting series of events, starting with my friend (and fellow gadget magpie) Drew purchasing a Vertu Ascent Ti at full retail price last summer (and eventually moving on from it), I now have one in my possession. Needless to say, the Vertu Ascent Ti a pretty big upgrade from the other two Vertus I have written about…
I got my Vertu Constellation in a round about way, and while I have greatly enjoyed owning it there has never been a day when I thought for even a moment that I was in the same financial bracket as the typical Vertu owner. Today I got proof positive of that fact in the form of a repair bill; more on that in a moment… I had noticed soon after getting my nearly new Constellation that the leather on its battery cover was rubbed and might one day start to peel back. This is certainly not uncommon with the model,…
[Note from Judie: This is Drew’s follow-up to his original letter about his first week with the Vertu Ascent Ti. If you haven’t already read that, then you might want to check it out.] I had an opportunity to take a bit of a deeper dive with the Ascent Ti this weekend and tried out some of these other features: 1. Fortress (the over the air backup utility) 2. The camera 3. The music player 4. Software upgrade process One of the big selling features is the ability to back up your personal information to the Fortress, a military shelter…
Some time ago, I wrote a semi-mocking post about a just announced Vertu phone which was encrusted with gemstones and that had a price tag in the $100,000 neighborhood; not only was this phone priced way out of my galaxy, it was priced out of my universe. In that post’s comments, Drew came in and mentioned that he had owned a few Vertus, and that they were in fact actually excellent phones – despite their astronomical price tag. He also said that it wasn’t necessary to get them encrusted in stones, and that there were some which were (relatively) reasonably…