Somewhere along the line, though, Vertu finally decided "enough is enough." The result is this good-looking Signature Touch which, for a change, packs pretty much everything you'd expect on a modern flagship
smartphone: a 2.3GHz quad-core
Snapdragon 801 chip, a 4.7-inch 1080p display, Cat 4 LTE radio (with bands covering many parts of the world), NFC plus
Qi wireless charging.
The goodies don't stop there. Most notably, the 13-megapixel main camera is actually certified by the renowned camera maker Hasselblad, so we look forward to giving it a test drive. Then there's the acoustics part: This new model packs a pair of speakers that are tuned by Bang & Olufsen, which should sound just as loud and crisp as the ones on the Ti. And if you're into it, the speakers also support Dolby Digital Plus surround sound. While they're at it, Vertu also got B&O to help craft the optional over-ear
headphones, which feature aircraft-grade aluminum, lamb leather and volume remote control. You can even get a Vertu-branded Bluetooth speaker for the phone, but it likely won't sound as good as the B&O-tuned headphones.
The Signature Touch also features a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera, 64GB of storage (no microSD expansion) and a modest 2,275mAh battery. Like its predecessors, this
Android 4.4 device is hand-assembled with several tough materials, including Grade 5 titanium for the casing, toughened zirconia for the ear pillow and a large piece of fifth-gen sapphire crystal for the screen. Then you get to pick the skin -- calf, lizard or alligator -- and a color it offers, if any (we dig the Claret Leather and Pure Jet Red Gold editions). You end up with a 192g-heavy, 10.65mm-thick device, which is a given for such a tough, masculine luxury device.
