Vertu Aster is a cheaper luxury smartphone

Vertu is one of those companies that caters to people who want the best of the best in smartphones, and not only referring to specs, display and processing power, but design as well. Vertu aims to offer its customers top-notch design that sits well with the latest fashion trends, but for a hefty price. It seems that Vertu might be trying to get it on the cheaper market as well with the Vertu Aster smartphone.

We had introduced you to the Vertu Aster a couple of weeks ago and we had estimated a price well into the thousands. Truth is, we weren’t far off. The new Vertu Aster, even though it’s marketed as a more affordable and mid-range luxury device, it will actually cost almost $7000, which is still a whole lot to pay for a smartphone, especially for a mid-range one. The Vertu Aster boasts a more unisex design, with a titanium body, V-pillow, sapphire screen, calf leather, snake skin and ostrich skin.

I have to say, I’ve got a beef with Vertu for using ostrich and snake skin in their design. Nonetheless, Vertu CEO emphasized the fact that the company is making phones for the socialites of modern society who can easily afford a luxury phone and want it to fit into designer-made suits and golden clutches. I don’t anybody ever though that Vertu would be targeting any other group than that. THe new Vertu Aster will sport a 4.7 inch 1080 p display, quad core Snapdragon 801 CPU, 2 GB RAM, 13 MP rear shooter and 2 MP selfie camera, along with LTE, Bluetooth, NFC, wireless charging and 64 GB internal storage.

The Aster model is the successor of the Constellation, but with a larger screen real estate. The base model with calf leather in either black, pink or blue colors included will set you back $6900, whilst the an orange or black snake skin back will cost $9100 with the most expensive version of the Vertu Aster setting you back $9700 with an ostrich skin back cover. The Vertu Aster is actually marketed as a more affordable luxury phone because it comes with a shorter Classic Concierge subscription of 6 months and without a dedicated agent.

The Vertu Certainty package offering six months of iPass Wi-Fi hotspots around the world, the Silent Circle communication encryption for a year and a year of Kaspersky mobile security subscription are also included in the Vertu Aster package, along with the classic Vertu Life curation service that allows access to exclusive events and venues for 18 months. That being said, the Vertu Aster and all of its brother and sister devices might be well worth their price just for the subscriptions they come with. Even though the company targets business people and entrepreneurs, the effort to make their devices more affordable has to be noted.

Vertu is planing on releasing even cheaper smartphones, in larger sizes, as well as wearable devices and audio gear, so we’re curious to see what CEO Max Pogliani has in mind for the future. The company is also designing a new e-commerce platform called the Vertu Digital service. The company is clearly thinking of expanding its luxury services even more and that might not be a bad idea since they do offer a pretty good bang for buck ratio – many bucks involved.