An earlier event in London featured the showcasing of Vertu’s new flagship phone, Metavertu. The phone will be the first Web3 phone and will have special abilities, such as running its own blockchain node and turning pics and videos into NFTs in one click.

“Walk into Web 3.0 seamlessly and smoothly. Such a Web 3.0 phone carries the perfect starting point for users’ digital sovereignty and blockchain infrastructure that can truly help users create their own value.” as the company described it.

Vertu will start selling their new phone on November 3 through their website and stores, including a new location on London’s Bond street that’ll open later in the year.

The new Vertu models overall offer great specs. All models include a ceramic frame and a sapphire glass screen with a slight curvature of 72.5 degrees. The phones will contain a Qualcomm SnapDragon 8 Gen 1 Cpu, encased by a 6.67 inch, 2400 x 1080 AMOLED display, with a cherry on top of a 4600 mAh battery. The camera consists of a three-lens camera array consisting of a 64 MP Humanity, a 50 MP wide-angle, and an 8 MP Periscope camera.

The one buying this phone, however, will have to pay a steep price of $41,500.

What is Vertu?

Vertu was first established in 1988 by Finnish mobile-phone manufacturer Nokia. The company has moved on to the exciting world of Web3, NFTs, and the metaverse after previously having attempted to sell smartphones with mid-tier specs and outrageously expensive finishes to luxury consumers. The company went bankrupt in 2017, but it relaunched after a succession of owners in 2018.

What will the phone offer and what will its price be?

The top-of-the-line model will have 18 GB of RAM, 1 TB storage, and an encasing of alligator leather, 18K gold, and diamonds. The price of this model will be $41,500. 

For those who do not have that kind of money to spend on a phone, an entry-level model will be available at a price of $3,600 that’ll have a carbon fiber finish, 12 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of storage.

“We want to reinvent the smartphone to de-complicate Web3,” said Vertu CEO Gary Chan at the phone’s launch event in London.

Vertu has achieved that goal by giving users the ability to switch between a standard Android operating system and a Web3 mode powered by an operating system created by Vertu called VOS that’ll enable the phone to be used as a light node. Users will be able to create a wallet easily, with an integrated trusted execution environment (TEE). The phone also features Vshot, a Dapp that mints an NFT with one click from a photo or video. In addition to these, Metavertu involves Vtalk which is an encrypted peer-to-peer instant messaging app that “integrates decentralized social networking”.

On top of all that, users get access to 10 terabytes of distributed storage on IPFS, as well as access to Vertu’s “red button” 24/7 concierge service that’ll assist customers with all matters related to NFT minting, mining, and trading.