More Bang…er, More Bucks for Your Phone!

Upscale Danish electronics firm Bang & Olufsen have announced they'll soon launch a super-simple, high-end mobile phone with Samsung.

Up-market electronics firm Bang & Olufsen and Samsung Electronics announced today that the companies plan to debut a new, uncomplicated, high-end mobile phone aimed specifically at people aged 25 and over. Promising a "truly unique product, which breaks with conventional assumptions and expectations," Bang & Olufsen plan to combine elegant design with simplicity, a streamlined users interface, and high-quality acoustics.

Bang & Olufsen are known for their pricey, design-oriented home electronics including televisions, loudspeakers, stereos, and home and car audio products, and bring their highly efficient ICEpower audio technology to the endeavor to provide high-quality audio on very little power. But otherwise, the phones will stick to basic functionality: "This will be super simple," said Torben Balegaard Sorenson, CEO of Bang & Olufsen. "We are emphasizing what the phone is meant for, which is talking." So, don’t expect music and video streaming, built-in games, ringtones, a camera, or other high-tech and 3G features. Rather than trying to appeal to the broad mobile phone market, the companies are seem to be aiming at the top—and most affluent—few percent who have money to spend on a best-of-class status device and who aren’t interested in all the bells, beeps, and features.

The firms plan to introduce the phones in Europe, the U.K., Russia, and the Ukraine during the final quarter of 2005.