zlacker

That market absolutely exists, and a few people have tried to serve it over the years. Here's an old example, a Samsung phone promoted by Jackie Chan that cost about $3,000 back in 2012:

https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-sch-w2013-jackie-ch...

And in 2018, One Plus had a $3,000 phone:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/this-3000-oneplus-6-is-the-...

>>a4isms+(OP)
The fact that none of these still exist proves that there is no market. It does prove that companies tried to see if there is one.

>>a4isms+(OP)
I think this is not exactly what GP was talking about. These are normal phones with an expensive marketing gimmick.

The "RED Hydrogen One," by that fancy camera company is closer I think. At least it had some story that could hypothetically have ended with a compelling technological reason for it to exist (RED is supposed to know cameras). Although, it didn't seem to work out either, but with a sample size of 1 it could be a fluke of poor execution.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/red-quits-the-smartp...

I'm surprised none of the really consumer-oriented camera companies have broken into smartphones. Camera stuff seems like more of a selling point for smartphones, than phone stuff. But, it seems like they never really want to dive in fully.

>>shadow+2c
I'd be very careful about suggesting that failure proves there is no market for something.

Many PC companies failed before Apple succeeded. Apple itself failed to the point of almost being acquired by Sun before succeeding by buying NeXT and shipping some hit products in the form of colourful iMacs and iPods with click-wheels.

The biggest problem with luxury products is that they have almost nothing to do with the product's tangible features and everything to do with whether you can establish a valuable brand. We live in a world where people spend thousands of dollars on fancy numbers that we have a kind of gentleman's agreement signify that they "own" a jpeg anyone can copy.

I suggest that there is absolutely a market for ridiculously priced phones, but the problem is not hand-crafting a phone with rare materials, the problem is creating the collective hallucination that owning such a phone will make other people envy you.

Apple actually sold some solid gold watches. There was a market for a $18,000 Apple Watch. It wasn't something worth sustaining in perpetuity, but there was a market. They also launched ridiculously priced accessories from Hermes, and there is still a market for them almost a decade later.

People will pay large amounts of money for exclusive items, but it takes a particular set of skills to launch something and convince the world it's the must-have accessory of the moment.

>>bee_ri+sk
Leica tried making one in Japan, but apparently camera cameras and smartphone cameras are somewhat different beasts.

I enjoyed MrMobile's review: https://youtu.be/skIgG8q_lKs

>>Tijdre+RC
Yeah, this came up when I was looking around. I'd call it a case of not diving in fully. Since it is really just a rebrand of a phone from some other company (albeit one for which they provided the optics).

>>a4isms+(OP)
Huawei Mate X2?