iPhone people will flock to it in crowds - they love style over substance

Paris - cos i bet she has both

stylistically, it looks quite nice.

functionality wise: what a pile of garbage... that would be fine if the phone was free on some noddy basic tarrif, but it's not. it's several times more pricey than my car (ok my car is crap, but still i bought a car for a lot less!)

motorola deserve to go out of business, they continually make the worst phones, with the worst usability, with the worst feature set, with the worst software.

can't see who this is aimed at, surely the Paris Hilton's of this world will have a diamond encrusted platinum coated jesus-phone and won't want nor need one of these?

So it's built to last but is aimed at the fashionista ? They're a fickle bunch and whats hot today is not tomorrow. This phone only needs to last a week before they'd get bored and get another play thing.

Speaking of heir today...

Do a few stock photos and some comments on the specs count as a review these?

2GB of eAAC+ at 56kbps should cover a fair few music tracks (they sound pretty much as good as a 192kbps MP3 at that bitrate), and given the camera is so poor you won't want to be using the storage capacity for pictures (or watching videos in red!).

My Sony erricson HAS Wi-Fi, an 8.1Mp camera, and 16x digital zoom, and cost a hell of a lot less. Who would pay such money for such a dated specification phone?!!! In fact even more basic phones either match or beat this spec!

When I first saw this thought that it was an April Fools joke until I did a google check, the phone is real.

Yes the title is a joke. I own the iPhone 3g. I wish this had the moto's 62 carat screen i hate screen covers.

And when its £49.99 on pay as you go then maybe i might treat the wife to it LOL.

Why do moto make such phones, maybe they already got in place a government bail out for when they go tits up ......

Paris cause she's not even that DUMB

The only reason such a phone exists is its price. It does not need to play AAC or whatnot. A person who buys this presumably can clearly afford a Nikon D3x for family photos.

This is an accessory. It has to be exclusive. And to be exclusive it has to be expensive.

A cheap plastic Casio knock-off can tell the time as well as (or better) than a Patek-Philippe.

@Anonymous Coward1 , you cannot compare this overpriced useless phone to the iPhone, my iPhone has a lot more usage and i doesnt need to spin round and it doesnt have any......ah yeah buttons!!!!

Title says it all.

Robert, you are totally missing the point - probably way too wrapped up in The Jobsian Reality Distortion Field.

This device is neither about features not about useability. It has two functions:

Primary function: Look good, look expensive, BE expensive

Secondary function: Oh yeah, make occasional phone calls

It's an accessory dammit! The "wielder" of this device wants to display the "aura" of having lackeys who carry around j-phones or crackberries, and can't afford this thing AND not understand its point. Vertu name remind you of anything? It's not pointless, it does have its niche buyers, called clientele and not customers or users.

The filthy rich can be stupid, but are rarely so. The stupid and his/her money are soon parted you see. It's just that they don't usually occupy the same plane of existence/have the same mindset/outlook as the working class.

You can even relate if you can think about it: There are a lot of people on this bluish globe of ours who have to subsist on less than 1 USD a day - who probably won't be able to read this, living on yet another plane of existence.

Ok help me out here. I'm confused as to why this phone gets 45% in the review and the nokia 8800 Arte gets 80% - maybe because it's the Arte actually got reviewed as opposed to the author just annotating the press release??

Both the Aura and the 8800 share the same basic characteristics - a low-to-medium feature set, great build quality & design, astronomical price. They are both aimed at people who want a phone to be more than just a phone, and who have a PA to check their hotmail for them so they don't need a web browser on their phone.

So all else being equal, why does this score 45% and the Arte 80%?

For what it's worth I'd still have the Arte - but that's because I want a phone who's guarantee will outlast the company that made it and I don't have that confidence in Moto.

on the Motorola display board at Mobile World Congress, so I know it is not April Fools. I even played with it, but it had no power.

It FEELS classy, nice and well formed, and you can easily tell that the case is metal and not sculpted plastic.

Sadly, I think it has missed it's market - it isn't REALLY sexy enough for a show-off phone, not quite a Vertu. And now with true luxury goods names getting in the business of selling hyper-expensive mobiles (Tag Heur, Porche, etc.) , the name cachet of "Motorlola" doesn't really compete.

Too little, too late - and that is even as a luxury good, not as high-tech mobile. But the case window showing the gears is slick though, so I expect to see more like this (there is a kinetic powered luxury phone that I am too lazy to link to, but it also has one).

Looks like some PR bunny missed the point. Literally.