Motorola AURA is luxury handset

Starting today, Motorola will compete with Nokia’s Arte series and the small brands such as Vertu and Mobiado, trying to steal the hearts of the rich consumers craving for luxury phones. Here comes the AURA, uniquely looking handset that is claimed to have been crafted of top-quality materials.

Its display is unique in the phone industry, with circular form, 16 million colors and 300 dpi resolution. To protect it from getting scratched, Moto uses Grade 1 62-carat sapphire crystal. The body itself is also not only pretty but composed of high-quality materials, made out of stainless steel, with chemically etched textures and patterns. Motorola claims its production takes nearly two weeks. The keypad consists of individual anodized aluminum keys. The company also says that thanks to a Swiss-made main bearing and unique rotating mechanism, the 100,000th opening will be the same as the first one.

If you are impressed by the high-end materials and wonder what the specs are, we are sorry to tell you: as the other luxury handsets, the functionality is suitable for a mid-level phone. AURA is quad-band GSM (no 3G), has 2GB of memory, 2MP camera, music and video player and stereo Bluetooth. Its browser is said to be “Open Source” so we hope it will be a good one.

*Update*: Motorola now accepts pre-orders and is expected to start shipping the AURA on December 04, 2008. The price is $2000.


source: Motorola