Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte – the strange world of luxury mobile phones

I’ve been holding off on doing a blog post about this particular mobile phone for a while now, since, basically, I’m not especially bothered about it. I couldn’t particularly find an angle, other than, “Whoa, how much???” (You’ll see why in a minute.)

But then, the angle came to me, earlier today, while I was writing the post about the Nokia 1100 Club. It hit me, right there.

Luxury mobile phones actually normally don’t do much more than a Nokia 1100 can do… so, what is it about luxury mobile phones that makes people think paying much more, for less features is a good thing? And with that in mind, is the Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte worth it?

For comparison, we need to look higher up the scale of luxury mobile phones. We need to look at the Vertu series, long-hailed as the most exclusive range of mobile phones on the planet. And we need to look at their price tags, because they are, quite seriously, ludicrous. I saw one on their site, once, that was covered in platinum, and cost about £14,000!

Surely they must be some super-powered mobile phones to cost that much, right? Well, no, until recently, they could be best described as “a 3310 with a fancy hat on”.

Then there’s that Tiffany mobile phone I blogged about way back in February. At the current exchange rate, that costs roughly £53,000 to buy! And once again, the features-list is rubbish. It’s enough to make you wonder who’s buying these mobile phones… I’m guessing premiership footballers. They value looks over brains…

All that neatly(ish) leads us onto the Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte, Nokia’s newest luxury mobile phone. And when you compare it to those price tags, it doesn’t seem bad at all, since it’s rumoured that, sim-free, it’ll come in about the £800 mark. Still, that’s a lot of money, so is it just another 3310 in a hat?

Well, no. They’ve actually packed some properly good features into the Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte, starting with gesture controls. And if you have no idea what they are, I’ll explain using this Nokia’s big feature: to stop it ringing, and send the incoming call to voicemail, just pick it up, turn it over, and put back on the table, face down.

That is clever.

Still not convinced it’s worth £800, though, especially when, if you want a luxury mobile phone, the standard Nokia 8800 Arte is better looking and much, much cheaper! It’s actually quite an appealing purchase, if you can afford it, and you want it, since it’s a genuinely nice mobile phone, and unlike its predecessor, the 8910i, it isn’t bought exclusively by ticket-scalpers and drug dealers…