Struggling with the credit crunch? Living on multipack gruel from Aldi and handouts from Primark's basement? Then we've got the perfect phone for you – Tag Heuer's £2650 Meridiist.
After 'eBay', one word goes through your mind on picking up the Swiss watchmaker's 'Avant Garde Communication Instrument' – Vertu. Like one its rivals' Constellation handsets, the Meridiist is unashamedly bulky and, in the hand, gives the impression that rather than containing any kind of phone tech, it's actually a solid block of aluminium with a screen stuck on the front.
So how does it justify the car-sized price tag? Well, build quality is, as you'd hope, outstanding. The screen is made from an apparently an 'unscratchable' 60.5 carats of sapphire crystal, though we're too scared to take a stanley knife to it just yet. And then there's the USP, a digital clock on the top. This is actually quite a charming touch, although the fact that it disappears when the screen goes into power-save strips it of any real practical use.
We were also excited to see the presence of a dedicated Tag Heuer button on the side. Could this rival Vertu's dedicated 'concierge' button, or even the 'Regatta' button from Tag's own watches that counts down to the start of your boat race? Erm, not quite – in fact, all we've managed to get it to do so far is flip the clock on the second OLED display round. Hopefully, it has a secret power we're yet to discover.
Elsewhere, the Meridiist keeps things simple. There's a 2MP camera, MP3 playback and, within the menus, the option of every single form of timekeeping you can think of – a world clock, alarm and stopwatch with split timing, lap times and countdown options. In case you didn't know, Tag Heuer really likes time.
It also likes 'luxury' finishes – ours came in crocodile, but the Meridiist will, come September, be available in rubber and leather looks. We'll be bringing you a hands-on video and review soon, which will test the impressive claimed 7 hours talk-time, but if you'll excuse us we've got some power-talking to do. "Yeah, just text my Tag..."
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