Let's be clear. We're not talking about Caviar here. We're talking about CAVIAR 😁(in capital letters), the company that plates phones. And they just released a titanium and gold iPhone Air. Well, "customized."
My amazement is genuine, not at the gold itself, but at the aesthetic audacity. Taking a gadget that costs a fortune anyway and putting it in a case that costs as much as an apartment is an act of art... but a very stupid one. It's a demonstration of engineering prowess, because it takes precision to put a mechanical watch on the back of a phone or to carve a 24K gold dragon on a piece of glass. Wow. Congratulations.
However, the question that haunts me is - Who uses a 40,000 $ phone? A collector? A bored oligarch? A man who has completely lost the meaning of utility.....whoo buy it?? This is a phone that, if you drop it from a height of 10 centimeters, you don't feel the pain of a broken screen, but the pain of having bent the art. It's a gadget that you can't take out in the rain, on a construction site, or in a tent, because... God forbid, the aerospace-grade titanium will scratch.
To me, a good phone is defined by the opposite of this exorbitant luxury:
The Supreme Phone is the one you can use as a hammer, drop in the mud, use as a measuring or communication tool in any environment - and it will hold up.
The Supreme Phone is one that doesn't force you to carry it around like a museum piece, but is present, useful, and durable in all areas of life, from the high-tech office to physical labor, from emergencies to relaxation.
What Caviar does is take cutting-edge technology and neutralize it from a practical point of view. It turns it into an expensive social limitation. You have a phone with the best processor, but you can't really use it, because it's too precious. It's a monument to vanity.
So, i look at those dizzying prices (7,000 $, 10,000 $, even 38,000 $) and shrug. It's a gorgeous, magnificent, ridiculous piece of equipment. Let those who can afford it rejoice. I'd rather have a piece of technology that actually works, not just shines.
This luxury is as hollow inside as a broken screen, even if it's covered in the finest gold. A huge waste of precious materials. They'd be better off using them for something that won't be obsolete in two years. But hey, at least they have Air in the name, probably because that's how you feel when you pay for it: like you're throwing money away.
Generally speaking, when you buy a Caviar phone like this, you're not buying cutting-edge technology. You're basically buying a standard iPhone Air. The hardware, the processor, the camera, the battery - everything is the same as the base model, the one the rest of the world buys. Caviar just takes that phone and artistically "defaces" it.
Herein lies the true black comedy of the ultra-luxury market:
You're paying an astronomical amount for an outer frame made of gold and crocodile leather.
You get the exact performance of a mass-produced phone, which will be technically surpassed in 12-18 months by the next Apple model.
There is no guarantee that after-sales service and software updates will be as smooth as on a standard model. The technology remains Apple's, the luxury is Caviar's.
So, the guy who spent or whant to spent 38,000 $ on the Zenith Edition, and in a year, his "ultra-premium" phone will move slower than a student's next 1,000 $ iPhone.
This is the ultimate form of indifferent indignation: realizing that it's such a superficial fad that it doesn't even offer the privilege of superior long-term technological performance. It's just an expensive case, which goes out of style as quickly as any other case, except that when you throw it away, you throw away a small fortune.
The irony is that while Caviar pushes the boundaries of luxury to the point of absurdity, what the vast majority of people actually want is an "iPhone Tractor" or a "Galaxy All-Terrain":
A device that doesn't require an additional, expensive protective case.
A screen that you can use with gloves or wet hands.
A battery that lasts a week, not just a day.
A shock and weather resistance that makes it useful to a mountaineer, a mechanic, or a parent with young children.
The technology exists, but it's either dedicated to the rugged niche (ugly, bulky phones) or hidden under tons of gold.
The dream of the modern consumer is not to look rich, but to be free from the worries of fragility. Free to use your phone anywhere, without fear of a service bill. And it doesn't cost 40,000 $ - it should be the standard!