14 DAY TRIAL // Despite its undeniable achievements when it comes to smartphones, Apple is not perfect. For example, one of the things the tech giant has failed to do up until now is produce an iPhone with a sapphire display.
While we’re praying and hoping Apple will manage to pull through and find a way to mass-produce sapphire crystal cylinders at a decent cost, some device makers have already taken a step ahead of Cupertino.
For example, Chinese device maker Oppo launched the R1C handset which arrives with a sapphire screen and a Snapdragon 615 under the hood, all for the price of $400 / €342.
While Oppo’s offering is quite friendly price-wise, there are some luxury device makers who are using sapphire displays as a premium material for their expensive handsets.
Bellperre's new phone has a big sapphire display
It’s the case of Bellperre who recently launched the Touch handset that arrives with a 4.9-inch display. The device is built around a 720p Super-AMOLED screen with premium glass covering.
On top of sapphire, the phone has a lot of other interesting features to offer. For example, it’s made out of corrosion-resistant 316L stainless steel in combination with either Buffalo leather / American Alligator skin.
Bellperre says it has plans to produce the handset in 73 different colors, which is pretty impressive. If you already check out the gallery, you’re probably wondering what’s with the strip of leather located below the screen.
Well, it’s more than a design quirk, since the strip has been made to be touch-sensitive and acts like Android navigation buttons. The company has probably bundled sensors of capacitive keys underneath to make this possible.
As for internal specifications, like it is the case with all these premium smartphones, they fail to impress. Basically, Bellperre is betting that the premium material used to build the phone will be enough to attract customers to its doors.
The Touch takes its life power from an insufficient dual-core 1.5GHz CPU (unnamed) fitted with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. Other specs include NFC, Bluetooth, LTE and an 8MP/1.9MP camera combo.
Bellperre is offering the Buffalo version for a price of $3,000 / €2,646 while the Alligator Skin goes on sale for $3,430 / €3,026.
While the handsets cost quite a lot, the price ranges aren't even comparable to Vertu’s offerings which usually sell for $20,000 / €17,644 and up, making them a possible dream for everyone out there.
