Everything You Need to Know About the World's Most Expensive Smartphone

Image via Complex Original

Watchmaker Ulysse Nardin founded his eponymous company in 1846 in Le Locle, Switzerland. Nardin first set out to marine chronometers for military and merchant ships. The company became so well-known and so lauded by captains, Ulysse Nardin became the primary chronometer maker for sea vessels around the world.

So, how does a company known for making timepieces for the seafaring get into making smartphones? The Chairman phone is really an extension of the path the brand embarked on when it was purchased in 1983 by Rolf Schnyder. Schyder refashioned the brand into a watchmaker that manufactured beautiful complication timepieces-or, watches that do more than tell the time and date.

When Ulysse Nardin partnered with Scientific Cellular in 2009, it set out to do the same with smartphones. It sought to make a luxury smartphone as complicated and rarefied as its legendary timepieces. Unsure if people wanted such a device,the company anticipated 200 to 300 pre-orders upon its launch in 2012. It receieved over 8,000. 

As you can imagine, the Ulysse Nardin Chairman is pretty damn expensive. At the bottom of the totem sits the least expensive model in the range: the Steel and Blue which you can get for $14,000. Pick up your jaw. If you really want to ball out, you can go for the top-of-the-range model that comes encrusted in 3,000 hand-cut 17-karat diamonds. That will set you back $130,000.

Ulysse Nardin didn't go the same route other phone makers go to build the Chairman. The device is not built in the same factory that makes the $99 Android handsets. Each one is handmade in a custom built facility in Hungary. The limited availability of each Chairman isn't a marketing gimmick-they really take a while to produce. It takes 700 man-hours just to cutting and placing the diamonds on the Chairman. And if you want the one with diamonds scattered about, you'll have to wait seven months. 

When looking for an operating system to power a phone that could cost more than BMW, Ulysse Nardin opted for Google's budding mobile operating system, Android. Upon the unveiling of the device in 2009, it was shown to be running Android 2.2 (Froyo). Four years later, nothing's changed. Despite Android moving onto version 4.2, the Chairman still runs a version of 2.2. You would think if you're paying a couple stacks for a smartphone, it would come with the latest available software. That said, the phone comes with all the standard Google apps: Gmail, YouTube, and Google Maps.

Okay, so, you can get the phone in a wide range of rare materials and laced with diamonds. But how is it as an actual phone? Judging from the spec sheet, pretty average. There's a 3.2-inch touchscreen, a Freescale i.MX processor, 32 GB of internal storage, and an 8 megapixel rear camera. There's also, for some reason, a physical number pad. Like its use of Android 2.2, it's obvious the hardware hasn't changed since its unveiling in 2009.

Despite its anemic specs, the Chairman does come with some cool features not found on other smartphones. To ensure that no one has access to any of your personal information in the event that the phone's misplaced, each model comes with a built-in thumbprint reader. Passwords are obviously beneath the wealthy. Also cool are the included ringtones. Harkening back to its watchmaking heritage, Ulysse Nardin recorded the sounds from some of its old mechanical chiming watches and recomposed them for use on the phone.

The Chairman's coolest special feature also nods back to Ulysse Nardin's horological past. The crown and rotor you see on left side of the phone is not meant to adjust the time, it's meant to power a second battery that collects the kinetic energy from when the rotor is twisted. Without the second battery, the Chairman notches seven hours of talk time and 30 hours of standby time. When you have a phone made out of gold and diamond, the last thing you want to do is cover it with a battery case.

If you thought Apple had good packaging, wait until you unwrap a Chairman. Each phone comes with the Ulysse Nardin Docking Cabinet. Described by the company as the ultimate accessory for your Chairman phone, the Cabinet is handmade from lacquered wood and lined with Alcantara leather--the same material Lamborghini uses for its steering wheels. When docked in the Cabinet, the user can charge the Chairman, back up its data onto a 32 GB memory stick, or take calls or play music via the built-in Bluetooth speakers. We wonder if it would work with our iPhones?

You may be thinking to yourself: Who the hell would pay between $14,000 and $200,000 for a cell phone? Millionaires, billionaires, and celebrities. Duh. As the adage goes, something is only worth as much as people will pay for it, and it turns out celebrities like Fat Joe and 50 Cent have no qualms with paying crazy amounts of dough for the Chairman.

Ulysse Nardin makes only 1,846 copies of each of its designs (a tribute to the watchmaker's founding year, 1846). There are 15 models to choose from, featuring varying color combinations like "Steel and Blue" or "Stealth Black." If you really want to step it up, the company offers different diamond upgrades for model so you can really have a one-of-one.