Most expensive cellphones unveiled in 2008

After jewelry and modern gadgets, cellphones festooned with gold, platinum and diamonds are turning out to be the best assets to flaunt lavishness. The ubiquitous trend of encrusting crystals on gadgets has made it pretty clear that men love bling as much as women. If your wish list for this holiday season includes a luxurious, bejeweled phone, take a look at this list of the best luxury phones launched this year.

Tag Heuer Meridiist

With leather and metal embellishments complementing its angular design, the Tag Heuer Meridiist is an example of precision craftsmanship in the mobile space. The Meridiist boasts a Sapphire crystal display glass, 2 megapixel camera, 1.9-inch QVGA display, mp3 player and bluetooth wireless technology. Priced between $5300 and $6100. More here.

Apple iPhone 24ct Gold Edition by Goldstriker

Goldstriker has always been famous for its gold plated handsets. Their latest addition is the Apple iphone 3G 24ct Gold edition. Parts adorned are front bezel and all outer command buttons. Priced at £1,195. More here.

Mobiado Professional 105 ZAF

Claimed to be the thinnest luxury phone in the world, the 105 ZAF measures a mere 10.6mm thin. The entire front and back of the phone has been fabricated from large pieces of sapphire crystal, providing a modern minimalist look with a wear resistance second only to diamond. More here.

Motorola Aura

Boasting of outstanding craftsmanship, inspired by high-end watches, the AURA breaks convention and marks the return of artistry in the design of mobile phones. The luxury handset comes with a 1.55-inch circular LCD screen, and a 2-megapixel camera. Priced at £1400. More here.

Vertu Ascent Ti collection

The Vertu Ascent Ti collection is targeted straight at the affluent Ferrari fans. The three new models include the limited edition Nero (Black) and some special editions called the Rosso (Red) and Gaillo (Yellow). All three phones will bear a Ferrari logo on their back. More here.

Mobiado 105GMT Gold with dual mechanical Swiss watch

The 105GMT Gold will be limited to 50 masterpieces, with the limited edition number being machine engraved into the back of each phone. The entire front and back of the 105GMT Gold Luxury Mechanical Watch mobile phone has been crafted from large pieces of sapphire crystal. The 105GMT Gold incorporates a unique dual mechanical watch movement. More here.

Continental 3G iPhone with emeralds

This is the world’s first iPhone set with emeralds and VS1 quality diamonds. This masterpiece, with vivid green emeralds, is one of the most iconic and coveted phones ever conceived. Blending seamlessly with the 3G iPhone’s sleek curves, the handcrafted case emanates a sensual allure that is almost impossible to resist. Priced at £2999 and £3099 8GB and the 16GB version respectively. More here.

Solid gold Vertu Boucheron 150

With lots of planes and angles, the phone case has been crafted from a single piece of gold, and it took 1,000 hours to cut into shape, 700 hours to hand polish, and more than 500 hours to build. The phone is expected to sell for $30,000. More here.

Nokia 8800 Arte Pink

The Nokia 8800 Arte Pink by Peter Aloisson is the epitome of luxury. The handset touts 680 white and pink glistening diamonds in addition to coating the entire handset in gold. Priced at €85,000. More here.

Gresso White Diamonds Collection

The Gresso White Diamonds Collection features inherit hand-assembled body panels made out of 200-year old African blackwood, keyboards with base plate made of titanium and stainless steel battery cover with a magnetic lock plus leather and gold decoration. Priced at 9000 Euros. More here.

Knalihs Athem’s Nokia 8800 Sapphire

Only 20 units of the Knalihs Athem Diamond encrusted Nokia 8800 Saphire Arte were put into production. There are 1000 diamonds that weigh 6.75 carats placed on the Nokia 8800. Pricing starts from $20,000. More here.

Softbank 823SH Tiffany phone

The Softbank 823SH Tiffany phone comes encrusted with 537 (18.34 carat) diamonds. The glittering phone will retail for 12.98 million yen, which comes out to approximately US $132,140. More here.

Diamond-studded Nokia E90

The Nokia E90 by Peter Aloisson has been festooned with 408 diamonds and an 18 carat white gold shell. Moreover, a total of 9.86 carats of VVSI–IF (LC) diamonds have been used to beautify the rim of the phone. Youirs for 52,000 Euros. More here.

Peter Aloisson’s Princess Plus

The custom iPhone, called Princess Plus, has half of its 318 diamonds in the bedazzling square princess cut while the total weight of the stones came down to 17.75. There is an 18K white gold lining around the edge of the phone. Yours for a cool $176,400. More here.

Amosu Ultimo Diamond

Perfectly set with 1179 dazzling 16.18 carat diamonds, the Amosu Ultimo Diamond iPhone is handcrafted by skilled craftsmen using only the most exceptional materials. This exclusive Ultimo Diamond iPhone features 458 diamonds caked around the flat-front face. While the rear bottom case is made of 18 carat solid white gold encrusted with 660 diamonds. Priced at £89,000. More here.

[via CellPhoneBeat]

Nokia E90 Communicator Sold For Five Grand

Although Nokia's latest communicator model is supposed to go on sale next month, one consumer just couldn't wait that long to get his hands on the E90. In Jakarta, Indonesia—where Nokia launched its first communicator, the 9000, way back in 1996—one Hartono Gunawan won the eagerly-awaited smartphone at auction for the equivalent of $5,000—far more than what the E90 will go far when it ships.

Proceeds from the auction are slated to go to UNICEF, while Gunawan becomes the owner of the first commercially available E90 in the world.

The E90 is Nokia's first new communicator in a few years, following the aging 9500 and 9300 models. While the smartphone is a Symbian smartphone like past communicators, Nokia ditches the S80 interface for the far more popular S60 platform with this device.

This means, among other things, a far larger swath of third-party software will be available for the E90 than the 9500, for example.

The E90 measures 5.2 x 2.2 x 0.8 inches (132 x 57 x 20 millimeters) and weighs 7.4 ounces (210 grams). That's a little lighter than the largish 9500 and a little heavier than the compact 9300. The E90 is also about as wide as the 9500 but is about as tall and thick as the 9300.

As a quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900) device, the E90 should pretty much get you a signal almost anywhere in the world. There's also GPRS, 2.5G EDGE, 3G UMTS and 3.5G HSPDA data networking. Additional wireless technologies include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with stereo headset support, GPS and even an FM radio.

There's a full keypad along with a 240 x 320 pixel resolution display that you can run software from on the outside—so you can use nearly all the E90's functions with the smartphone closed (unlike previous Nokia communicators), and a full QWERTY thumb-keyboard with a large 800 x 352 pixel resolution screen that supports 16 million colors inside.

The E90 has two cameras, a 3.2 megapixel one with autofocus and flash and a second shooter for video conferencing. It features stereo speakers and a 2.5 millimeter connector for stereo headphones.

There's a microSD slot to add additional storage on top of the device's built-in 128 MB of RAM: It is supposed to ship with a 512 MB microSD card. The E90 sports a USB Mini-B connector to link to a PC at USB 2.0 speeds.

It also includes a text-to-speech reader, the Quickoffice document editor/reader, many personal information management tools, the new Nokia Maps application, a MP3 and AAC audio player, an video player, and a full compliment of messaging and e-mail options.

Nokia estimates the E90 will start shipping during the second quarter of this year, and become available globally during the third. The unsubsidized retail price should be around 750 to 800 Euros, which is in the $1,000 range.