Yes, the Xor Titanium is a real phone. No, you can’t afford it. And, frankly, unless you’ve got a stupid amount of money lying around, you probably don’t want one. Unless, that is, you’re a fan of the departed Vertu luxury smartphone lineup.

And that’s because Xor (which is pronounced ‘Eggsor’) is a new company very much in the vein of Vertu. That is, it’s all about high-end phones for people who can afford them — without worrying too much about specs. Which is unsurprising, really. Xor was co-founded by former Vertu design head Hutch Hutchison, and several of that company’s staff have joined the team.

Want an Xor Titanium? Too bad

The Xor Titanium gets its name from the build material for the (admittedly attractive) handset. It’s… titanium. Well, the chassis is and there’s a leather panel on the back. Plus, the handset features an old-school T9 keypad. And that’s because this £3,000 (R62,000 or so) cellphone can only make calls and send text messages.

What good is that, you cry? Obviously you don’t have actual ‘spending money’. The Titanium was made with high-end customers in mind, who don’t need a smartphone to do… whatever it is that they do.

There are a few modern features, like active noise cancellation for calls, an air-quality sensor, wireless charging support, end-to-end (AES256) encryption if you happen to be talking to someone else using one of these… and an actual self-destruct button, because it didn’t feel enough like a super-villain’s handset yet. Seriously, there’s a remote key that’ll wipe all the data on the phone — which feels a little strange alongside 2G/3G voice calls and SMS messages but okay then.

Xor’s frankly insane cellphone is set to launch some time in 2021. There’s no way to pre-order one (yet) and it’s going to be too expensive for you to do that anyway. If you don’t employ someone specifically to pre-order things for you, you probably aren’t going to buy anything from Xor’s stable. But, like us, you might just do a little window-shopping.

Source: Engadget