How fitting that RIM and Porsche Design has chosen one of the world’s most famous luxury department stores, Harrods in London, as the exclusive seller of its luxury BlackBerry P’9981 phone.
Announced at the tail end of October but with no firm release date attached, the flashy device has now gone on sale there, where it’s priced at a mere £1,275, or a touch under $2,000.
That’s SIM-free of course, but admittedly the price would probably only be considered “mere” by regular Harrods patrons, as it’s considerably more than the standard Bold 9900 on which it’s based.
Like its cheaper cousin, the P’9981 has a 1.2Ghz processor, 768MB RAM, a 2.8-inch 640 x 480 resolution touchscreen and a 5-megapixel camera with 720p video recording. It’s separated by that eye-catching design, the brushed metal fascia and the hand-wrapped, all-leather rear panel.
BlackBerry OS 7 has been treated to a Porsche Design makeover too, as it uses a custom UI and has the popular augmented reality app, Wikitude World Browser, pre-installed.
Available with either English or Arabic as the standard language, anyone keen to get their hands on this genuinely exclusive BlackBerry will have to make the journey to Harrods — or at least their flunky will anyway — as it’s only available in-store and not online. However, we’re willing to bet they would send one out with your weekly order of Dom Perignon if you asked nicely.
Phonearena.com spoke to a Harrods representative, who described the P’9981 as “in very high demand and selling fast.”
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