Have you seen any “car enthusiasts” lately? Fascinating people who talk about the chassis, drive and power-to-weight ratios of the Ferraris and Lamborghinis that they don’t own, all decked out in their respective car-branded gear.
They say that the easiest way to spot that a person does not drive a Ferrari is to look for the guy wearing the Ferrari branded sunglasses/shirt. And since there are many more people who don’t own luxury cars versus people who do, car branded accessories are popping up everywhere. What’s worse is that these “accessories” are usually just overpriced versions of otherwise normal products. Slap a Rolls Royce logo on a microwave and it will probably be worth 10 times more.
Bentley has the same idea, and working with luxury phone manufacturer Vertu, they’ve smacked a Bentley badge on a USD9,900 (around RM43,600) phone to create the Vertu Signature Touch for Bentley. My bank account isn’t ready for this.
Vertu is renown for being the manufacturer of ultra-premium phones that usually prioritise form over function. But with their latest device, the Signature Touch, they’ve managed to combine the two aspects as it packs an octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor and 4GB of RAM with 64GB of internal storage under that pretty stitched exterior.
The Signature Touch also has a 5.2″ 1080p full HD display with sapphire crystal glass. It also sports a 21MP rear shooter with PDAF for their rear camera while the front will have a 2.1MP selfie camera. Powering the device is a 3,100 mAh battery.
So what’s the difference between this Signature Touch for Bentley versus the regular Signature Touch? Well, it has a 3D Bentley logo; two-tone Beluga and Hotspur Bentley leather with Hotspur stitching. Besides that, the Signature Touch for Bentley also features knurled side keys, a “unique” pillow rail and sound bar.
I know right? Try explaining why this phone is special without sounding pretentious.
Other than the potentially absurd price tag, there really is nothing too special about this smartphone that makes it a better phone than a similar flagship. It even runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop. I honestly think it looks really ugly, unnecessarily tacky and frankly quite ah beng (there is really no English word for ah beng) too.
I’d like to say that this automobile-branded-regular-product-fad has gone on for way too long and things are getting out of control so we should all refrain from buying them. But, I know that somewhere out there, there is a guy sitting in his million ringgit car thinking: “Hmm, if only I had a smartphone that costs about the same as a Myvi to match my Bentley…”.
