So, we recently found out that some former Vertu employees have banded together to launch a new luxury phone. In case you have already heard, Vertu, the former luxury phone division of Nokia did not survived despite its attempt to get into the smartphone market.
Anyways… the new brand, known as Xor (pronounced as “eggsor”) will also inherit the spirit of Vertu, i.e. candy bar form factor with the good’ol keypad. The brand’s first phone, called Xor Titanium, is kind of a mix bag of a regular cell phone and a smartphone.
It has a candy bar form factor with traditional key pad and a large screen that churns out an interfaced delivered by Linux-based software. In an age where 5G is the buzzword, Xor Titanium will faithfully stick to 2G/3G telecommunication technology.
The company is staffed by some ex-employees of Vertu, including Hutch Hutchison, the co-founder and head of design for Xor, who previously played a similar role at Vertu.
The Xor Titanium is a strictly pre-smartphone-era phone. Meaning its forte includes voice call and text messages, and that’s about it. Though so, it does have some new tech, such as an air quality sensor (don’t ask), active noise cancellation, wireless charging and a battery that is said to last up to 5 days on a single charge.
Clearly, Xor is not setting its eyes on regular folks. Xor Titanium is aimed at being the second phone of the super rich who are seriously concern about telecommunication security.
Xor further pitches itself as a secured handset that allows two Xor phone users to exchange calls and texts with end-to-end (AES256) encryption at hardware level. Moreover, the phone has different ringtone to distinguish between if an incoming call is encrypted or not. Plus, each device will have a remote secret key that lets you delete the data on the handset remotely.
The Xor Titanium Luxury Mobile Phone is set to arrive sometime in Q1 2021 for approximately 3,000 quids (US$3,955).
The phone was originally due to hit the market this year, but apparently, COVID-19 has hampered the launch. Even then, we can’t locate the official website. Perhaps, it does not need one?
Images and source: Engadget.
