If you thought Samsung was $2,000 Galaxy Z Fold 7 cheap, ugly and perfect for farmers with only four or five bedrooms in their house, then luxury phone maker Vertu has a foldable phone. Alphafold, as the company’s new device is called, uses materials such as calfskin, crocodile skin, 24 karat gold and, of course, a real diamond in its construction — and it starts for just $6,880.
Still cheap and bad for you? That’s right, Vertu offers a complete customization service for “successfully entered” pricing. Some of the company’s ultrarich designs have six-figure price tags attached. Definitely worth $800 Motorola Razr in shame.
Crocodile skin and real gold? No problem here!
So what do you get for all that money? However, most of it goes to whatever wild things you want Vertu to implement on your phone. Each unit is made to order and hand built to your specifications.
The Alphafold is a book-style foldable, with an 8-inch “crease free” internal display, a 6,500-mAh silicon-carbon battery and a rear camera setup that includes a 50-megapixel main camera, a 5-megapixel telephoto and a 50-megapixel ultrawide. Vertu also says the device runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. It’s not clear at the time of writing exactly which model this is, but either way, it’s a step behind Qualcomm’s current flagship. 8 Elite Gen 5.
Disappointed that the specs are so… meh? Yes, me, but Vertu probably rightly assumes that its super-rich customers will be too busy running their huge empires to want to spend more time taking artistic photos of whatever locations they’re running on or getting the best frame rates when playing Genshin Impact.
The camera specs may not be the best, but it’s probably more than enough for any jet-setting CEO.
To help those under-appreciated CEOs achieve their well-intentioned goals, Alphafold is here to help Agent AI tools. Vertu says these tools will not only do things like analyze your company’s data but can also make strategic recommendations.
Unsurprisingly, Vertu is keen to make it clear that AI will not work alone, saying it “must act as a trusted execution partner for decision makers, not as an unfettered autonomous system.” So there is no need to worry that your phone will decide to sell your company when its stock goes up or choose to vote you off the board because you trust your phone to make decisions.
There’s a whole load of other business-oriented stuff and AI tricks, but as someone whose income is below the threshold for any Vertu customer, my interest started to wane once I finished looking at pictures of the fancy device — just like when I used to study at school.
The large indoor screen is the best place to view your company’s spreadsheets or whatever business people are doing.
Still, I’m really curious to see this thing in the flesh and take the opportunity to see what it’s like to use such a high-end handset. Then I think I’ll have to go back to the world with a bump when I have to go back to my disgusting cheapness. iPhone 17 Pro like I’m in some kind of Dickensian slum. Total.
