I have no idea how long this has been available here, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the world’s most expensive(?) non-custom cellphone on sale in Lucerne at Glorietta this evening. See that six-digit number at that foot of each unit? That’s the price in pesos — roughly the cost of a decent second-hand car, or a really tricked-out Mac Pro.
As you can imagine, the specifications of this thing are utterly laughable if you’re coming at it from a price-to-performance perspective. (It doesn’t even have 3G for goodness’ sake.) Instead it has non-tech-related features like "flawless leather," "ceramic keys" and a "locking device that took two years to design" (see un-deep-linkable Flash website at http://vertu.com for more marketing speak).
I love the idea of having outrageously expensive devices on the market, because there’s always someone who’s reckless enough to buy them. Think about the unboxing videos you could take with this thing! The entire store probably falls silent to allow an on-call string quartet to set the proper mood.