The Problem with this “Ultra Luxury” Smartphone

Summary

MKBHD reviews the Vertu Agent Q, a $5,380 “ultra luxury” smartphone that promises premium materials, flagship specs, and an AI-powered concierge service. Despite the astronomical price tag, the phone offers relatively standard specifications found in phones costing under $1,000 - a Snapdragon 8 Elite, 1TB storage, 16GB RAM, and a 120Hz 1080p AMOLED display with budget-phone-style bezels. The device does feature some unique design elements like wine-red calf skin leather, stainless steel rails, and clever “falcon wing” SIM card trays with Swiss hinges.

The review exposes significant problems with Vertu’s marketing claims. Their website advertises a “world’s first mechanical zoom” and “variable aperture” camera, but testing reveals these features don’t actually exist - the aperture slider just applies fake software blur, and the EXIF data lies about the settings. The camera uses the same Sony IMX906 sensor found in sub-$500 phones. The website is filled with AI-generated buzzwords and even claims the phone has a “Snapdragon 8 Elite Supreme” chip, which doesn’t exist.

The main selling point - a 24/7 concierge service accessed via a dedicated “Ruby key” - turns out to be operated by human assistants in China, not AI. When MKBHD tested it by ordering a shirt, it took 7 hours to complete, required sending payment via PayPal with a screenshot as proof, and contained numerous typos. The whole Vertu brand was originally a Nokia luxury sub-brand that was sold to private equity and moved to China, where it has become what the reviewer describes as “a crudely skinned Android phone designed to take advantage of people with way more dollars than cents.”

Highlights

”$5,380 plus tax plus shipping”

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“This phone I paid $5,380 for, plus tax, plus shipping.” — Marques Brownlee, 0:54

”World’s first AI agent phone for entrepreneurs”

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“This is positioned as the world’s first AI agent phone for entrepreneurs. I’m dead serious. That’s a quote straight from the top of their website. I wish I was joking.” — Marques Brownlee, 2:40

”Artistic soul over mere specifications”

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“Their website says, ‘We pursue artistic soul over mere specifications.’ which I guess explains why they’re using a Sony IMX906 sensor, which is the same as we’ve seen in Samsung’s A55 and a bunch of other sub $500 phones.” — Marques Brownlee, 8:18

”It’s real, man. It’s real.”

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“I’ve actually chatted with this human assistant long enough to ask, ‘Are you a human?’ To which they replied, ‘It’s real, man. It’s real.’” — Marques Brownlee, 12:23

”More dollars than cents”

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“This one just happens to be a crudely skinned Android phone designed to take advantage of people with way more dollars than cents. Get it?” — Marques Brownlee, 15:17

Key Points

• The Price Game (00:02) - Opens with a guessing game about phone specs that would normally cost $800-$1,000, revealing it’s actually a $5,380 device
• Meet the Vertu Agent Q (01:01) - Introduction to the “ultra luxury” phone marketed as “the world’s first AI agent phone for entrepreneurs”
• Vertu’s Product Range (01:39) - Vertu sells phones ranging from $5,000 to $50,000, plus accessories like a $370 smart toothbrush
• Caviar vs Vertu (02:10) - Unlike Caviar phones with diamonds and moon rocks, Vertu tries to justify the price with an “AI experience”
• Luxury Unboxing (02:59) - The box includes drawers, leather case, authenticity card, and a separately boxed charger
• Unique Design Elements (03:25) - V-shaped design throughout, wine-red calf skin leather back, stainless steel rails with exposed screws
• Falcon Wing SIM Trays (04:11) - Clever toolless SIM card trays marketed as “falcon wings with Swiss hinges” - but this means no wireless charging or waterproofing
• Budget Phone Bezels (04:47) - Despite flagship-level specs, the phone has massive budget-phone-style bezels and disappointingly quiet speakers
• Camera Zoom Lies (05:55) - Website claims “world’s first true mechanical zoom lens” but it’s just a normal fixed lens
• Fake Variable Aperture (06:50) - The advertised f/1.59 to f/4 variable aperture is actually just software blur - EXIF data lies, shutter speed and ISO don’t change
• Budget Camera Sensor (08:22) - Uses Sony IMX906 sensor found in sub-$500 phones like Samsung A55 and Honor 200
• The Ruby Key & AI Concierge (08:44) - A dedicated button opens the Vertu Life app with 24/7 concierge service, organized into V-themed categories
• Testing the Concierge (09:53) - Asked the concierge to order a shirt from MKBHD.com as a test
• Payment Red Flags (10:45) - Concierge quoted wrong price ($20.30 vs $29), requested PayPal payment with screenshot proof, and offered “USD” as payment (possibly crypto)
• Beijing Time Zone (11:33) - Concierge requested to wait until 10am Beijing time to complete the order, revealing they’re likely based in China
• Definitely Human, Not AI (12:23) - Typos and time zone requests reveal the “AI agent” is actually human assistants
• Vertu’s Origin Story (13:05) - Originally a Nokia luxury sub-brand from London, sold to private equity and moved to China
• AI Slop Website (13:28) - The website is filled with meaningless buzzwords and false claims like “Snapdragon 8 Elite Supreme” (a chip that doesn’t exist)
• The Concierge Paradox (14:12) - The only way this could be worth it is if the unlimited lifetime concierge service actually worked well - but $5,000 for unlimited 24/7 service probably means it won’t be good
• Final Verdict (15:03) - All phones do the same things; this is “a crudely skinned Android phone designed to take advantage of people with way more dollars than cents”

Surprising Quotes

“This phone I paid $5,380 for, plus tax, plus shipping.” — 00:54

“This is positioned as the world’s first AI agent phone for entrepreneurs. I’m dead serious. That’s a quote straight from the top of their website. I wish I was joking.” — 02:40

“Their website says, ‘We pursue artistic soul over mere specifications.’ which I guess explains why they’re using a Sony IMX906 sensor, which is the same as we’ve seen in Samsung’s A55 and a bunch of other sub $500 phones.” — 08:18

“I’ve actually chatted with this human assistant long enough to ask, ‘Are you a human?’ To which they replied, ‘It’s real, man. It’s real.’” — 12:23

“This one just happens to be a crudely skinned Android phone designed to take advantage of people with way more dollars than cents. Get it?” — 15:17

Mentions

Companies

• Vertu (01:01) - Ultra luxury phone manufacturer, originally a Nokia sub-brand from London, now owned by private equity and based in China
• Nokia (13:05) - Original parent company that started Vertu as a luxury sub-brand
• Caviar (02:10) - Luxury phone company known for art-piece phones with diamonds and moon rocks
• Samsung (08:22) - Mentioned for Galaxy S9 variable aperture and A55 phone using same sensor
• Sony (08:22) - Manufacturer of the IMX906 camera sensor
• Honor (08:30) - Mentioned for Honor 200 using the same camera sensor
• ZTE (13:28) - Referenced as what the Vertu phone suspiciously feels like
• PayPal (10:45) - Payment method used for concierge service

Products & Technologies

• Vertu Agent Q (01:01) - The $5,380 “ultra luxury” smartphone being reviewed
• Snapdragon 8 Elite (00:15) - The processor in the phone
• Sony IMX906 (08:22) - Camera sensor found in sub-$500 phones
• Galaxy S9 (07:02) - Referenced for having actual variable aperture camera
• Samsung A55 (08:27) - Sub-$500 phone using the same camera sensor
• Honor 200 (08:30) - Sub-$500 phone using the same camera sensor
• iPhone Air (05:21) - Referenced for lightweight design comparison
• Vertu Life App (08:44) - The concierge/butler service app
• USDT (12:41) - Cryptocurrency mentioned as possible payment option
• Android (15:09) - Operating system running on the phone

People

• Aaron / Mrwhosetheboss (13:19) - YouTuber who also reviewed Vertu and dove deeper into the company history
• Marques Brownlee / MKBHD - Video creator and reviewer

Transcript

0:02 All right, let’s play a little game. I’m going to tell you the specs of a brand new phone, and you tell me how much you think this phone should cost. All right, no cheating. Don’t look it up. Here’s the specs. Snapdragon 8 Elite. This has a terabyte of storage and 16 gigs of RAM. Triple cameras, 50 megapixel main, 50 megapixel ultrawide, 64 megapixel telephoto, 1080p 120 Hz AMOLED display, 5,565 mAh battery, and 65 watt fast charging, and dual stereo front-facing speakers.

0:36 How much should that phone cost in 2026? Maybe like a $800, $900. Maybe a nice even $1,000 phone or maybe 1,200 or 1,500 bucks, maybe. Maybe 2,000. This phone I paid $5,380 for, plus tax, plus shipping. So, what the hell is going on here?

0:59 So, this is one of those ultra luxury phones. It’s called the Vertu Agent Q. Yes, really. And if you go to the Vertu website, it’s covered in buzzwords like inspiration and craftsmanship and cognitive clarity, confidence. It’s really a lot. There’s just no way it can be worth it though, right? Well, I have been using this phone for a couple weeks now, and there are some things about it that are actually better than a regular phone. I hate to admit it, but also there are absolutely some things about it that are not worth it. And what’s crazy is the more I dig into it, the funnier it gets.

1:39 So, first of all, what is it? I picked up this is one of the cheaper phones on Vertu’s website, but they’ve got a bunch of even more ridiculously expensive tech on their site. There’s a $7,000 phone, a $9,000 phone, a 20,000, a 35, a $50,000 phone, and various other ridiculously expensive accessories like this $370 smart toothbrush. But no matter which item you pick, they’re going to try to sell you on the experience of luxury. Okay? So, just keep that in the back of your head for this luxury.

2:10 Now, you might remember a video I did a couple years ago on those Caviar phones. And as ridiculous as those were, you could pretty clearly see their angle for trying to charge so much for a phone because it was more of an art piece type of thing, right? They’d have literal diamonds on the back of a normal iPhone or a piece of the moon glued to the back of it, like just pure material insanity. But this Vertu phone has a slightly different angle. It does have some pretty unique hardware, but this is positioned as the world’s first AI agent phone for entrepreneurs. I’m dead serious. That’s a quote straight from the top of their website. I wish I was joking. Along with a picture of the phone next to a white Falcon covered in jewelry.

2:50 So, somehow they’re going to try to justify the $5,000 plus price tag of this phone with a luxury AI experience. We’ll get there. So, the whole experience starts with the unboxing, and it is definitely pretty insane. Like, this box has drawers and a leather case and an authenticity card, and it actually comes with the charger in the box. Well, actually, I take that back. The charger is in a whole separate box for some reason, but hey, that’s real luxury. But surely that can’t make up the entire price tag.

3:21 So, then you get to the phone itself, and that’s where things start to get a little more interesting. Like, this is a pretty unique phone. It’s a little thick. It’s got this unique shape where it’s not quite a rectangle. It’s more of a Vertu V-shape everywhere. The front of it has the V-shape. The front-facing speakers have the shape. The back of the phone is a V-shape. And then this back material is a wine red calf skin leather with this stitching that fully wraps around the top and bottom of the phone. It smells like leather and everything. It’s really nice if you’re into that.

3:54 Also, the rails of this phone are stainless steel, kind of fingerprinty, but there’s also a whole bunch of exposed screws. It’s really solid. The buttons are nice and clicky. And it’s funny, they couldn’t get the USB type-C port at the bottom because of this fancy calf skin leather wrap thing. So, they have it up here at the top right corner instead.

4:11 The coolest part though is easily these two wings at the back here. These actually both cleverly open up to expose two SIM card trays. On the website, they call them falcon wings that open with perfect poise with Swiss hinges to reveal a hidden monogram, which yeah, I guess I’m just genuinely happy to have a toolless SIM card tray. That’s actually pretty sweet. But it also means this phone does not have any wireless charging or any waterproofing or IP rating of any kind. But, you know, that’s just a luxury trade-off, right?

4:44 The specs, like I said, aren’t incredible, but they aren’t terrible either. They’re mostly flagship level. Like this is 120 Hz AMOLED display for real. It’s only 1080p, but hey, it’s high refresh rate. And it has a whole terabyte of storage and 16 gigs of RAM, which is elite. The Snapdragon 8 Elite chip inside is great, but it’s also rocking some absolutely massive budget phone style bezels with brutally rounded corners.

5:09 And these huge stereo front-facing speakers you would think would be really great. Unfortunately, they’re actually quieter and tinier than a normal phone. The extra weight, I will say, actually feels nice. Like, it’s the opposite of the iPhone Air effect. You feel like you’re getting more for your money when it’s substantial like this. It’s only like 20% heavier than a normal phone, but still, that’s nice. But it’s not $5,000 nice.

5:35 So, then there’s the cameras. And again, on the surface, pretty normal. Triple cameras. There’s a primary, ultrawide, and a telephoto. But again, this is it’s the more I look into this, the funnier it gets. First of all, the primary camera is already kind of zoomed in for some reason. It’s a 35 millimeter focal length instead of the usual roughly 24. And it had an absolute metric ton of options that I’d never seen before in this camera and I want to understand them.

6:01 So, I go to their website and oh my god, their website, they have a bunch of stuff on their website that says a bunch of crazy things about this camera that at first are kind of believable maybe. Like they have this page that says experience the world’s first true mechanical zoom lens. And you know it’s a $5,000 phone. So I’m thinking maybe there’s some world’s first here. But I cannot actually for the life of me figure out what they mean by that.

6:30 Like I’ve used this phone so much. There is nothing going on here with the zoom like any sort of smooth optical zoom or variable focal length or anything like that. What is mechanical zoom? It’s just a normal fixed lens. In no way is this a world’s first zoom.

6:45 I keep reading. There’s another section that deep dives on the camera that says it has a real mechanical variable aperture. F1.59 to f4. Oh. Oh, okay. Great. It was just a misunderstanding. It’s a variable aperture. Okay, interesting. That would be cool. That’s not a world’s first still, but I remember seeing that on the Galaxy S9 back in the day and it was pretty useful. Like that was an innovation to control the amount of light hitting the sensor and the depth of field with a simple press of a button.

7:13 But then I go in to use it on the Vertu phone and I cannot find any indication of an actual variable aperture camera in this phone. I actually open the portrait mode and there’s a whole aperture slider from f16 to f1. But as I play with this slider, it’s very clearly just adding a massive amount of fake software blur to the subject.

7:35 Because after I take the photo and review them on a device that isn’t the Vertu phone, it’s crazy. The EXIF data actually tries to say these photos are at f1 and f16, but they’re clearly lying because the shutter speed didn’t change, the ISO didn’t change, and the photos look essentially identical to each other. You’re going to have to do better than that, guys. Come on.

7:54 Really, the most impressive thing about my testing with the Vertu phone cameras, I swear this is true, that little watermark they insist on putting in the bottom left corner of every picture you take, it actually changes to a dark watermark if the background is light, but it’s a light watermark if the background is dark. Cool.

8:11 You know what? Maybe the luxury customer doesn’t really care about the camera that much for some reason. After all, their website says, “We pursue artistic soul over mere specifications.” which I guess explains why they’re using a Sony IMX906 sensor, which is the same as we’ve seen in Samsung’s A55 and the Honor 200 and a bunch of other sub $500 phones. It’s not about the specs, though.

8:32 But it turns out the main sell for this phone isn’t the cameras. It isn’t the specs or the materials or even the wine red calf skin leather or the Swiss hinges. It’s the AI agent. This special ruby key on the side of the phone here will open a special Vertu Life app that has a 24/7 concierge/butler service that will accommodate your every request kind of.

8:58 Now, okay, the idea itself is not actually that insane. Like there are a number of super high-end credit cards that have similar perks like a concierge service that comes with it where you can like call or text a number and it’ll snag a restaurant reservation for you or help you make travel plans or that sort of thing. But again, with this one, the more I look into it, the funnier it gets.

9:20 When I first open the Vertu Life app, it gives me all these suggestions conveniently thematically divided into a bunch of V stuff. Vitality, which is a bunch of health and fitness related stuff. Vision for a bunch of business related insights. And there’s Victory and Vantage and Various, which just shows some other stuff like getting a Michelin star reservation or a private chef or fashion advice. And then from there, you can open a chat with either an AI or human assistant who can handle everything you need.

9:50 Now, I don’t have any insane asks, but I do want to test it. So, I hit the Ruby button and open the generic concierge, which has a bunch of different names and profile pictures and personalities available, by the way. But no matter which one I opened, it would reopen the same chat. So, let’s go with Amber. So, the first thing I asked was, “What’s the weather?” to which I got a nicely copied and pasted weather report. I should have expected that. I don’t know what to do here. I don’t know what to ask for.

10:17 But then I had an idea. Just, okay, order me one of those new shirts from mkbhd.com. That would be my task. And sure enough, I was immediately plummeted into this full-on text conversation with an agent who sent me screenshots and asked me what size I wanted and what shipping address and eventually placed an order for the shirt on my behalf. Now, that’s very exciting. Mission accomplished. The agent actually did what I asked it to.

10:45 But there were a couple of weird things about it, though. Number one, the dollar amount I was told to pay was $20.30, but it’s a $29 shirt. So, I even verified, I asked again before I paid just to make sure, hey, is it actually $20? And the butler was like, yeah, that’s the price. So, then number two, when it came time to pay, they asked what payment method I’d like to use. I said, I didn’t really want to enter a credit card number into the chat. They said, no problem. We take PayPal. It literally said PayPal or USD.

11:13 So, I had to open up PayPal on my computer, send the money to Vertu, and then send them a screenshot of my PayPal payment that I’d paid. Really odd. Probably more work than just going to the website and ordering the shirt myself. Also a screenshot seems fairly easy to photoshop.

11:33 But then number three, they requested some extra time to complete this transaction, specifically if they could wait till 10:00 a.m. Beijing time. I was doing all this in our studio at like 2 p.m. So that’s like 3:00 a.m. Beijing time or something like that. So by the time I got through with all of this chatting, which took like an hour and a half, it still had a couple more hours left to go to actually have them place the order.

11:56 And sure enough, I checked back later that night in the back end since this is our store. I can see that the order was placed for Marquez Brownlee at 9:03 p.m. that night. So like 7 hours after my chat with them.

12:09 So the number four on top of all this, there have been plenty of typos along the way. And this is just like, you know, between all the typos and also it asking for a more reasonable time to do the action. I understand that this is clearly not an AI assistant. This is definitely a human.

12:23 I’ve actually chatted with this human assistant long enough to ask, “Are you a human?” To which they replied, “It’s real, man. It’s real.” Also, the USD thing, I don’t really know what that is. Whenever I Google pay with USD, it always autocorrects to USDT, which is a crypto. So, it’s either a typo, which is a red flag, or it’s a crypto, which is even more of a red flag.

12:51 And just the whole time I’m talking to this agent, I’m getting the feeling that these are like a bunch of canned pre-typed lines combined with a bunch of like hastily written text by someone who’s like barely awake at 4 in the morning.

13:05 Like all of this brings me to why this phone is so silly. This whole Vertu brand, it turns out, was originally started in London by Nokia as a sort of luxury sub-brand, but then it was sold off and bought by private equity and then moved to China, where it’s turned into a less honest version of what it was.

13:19 Shout out to Aaron, Mrwhosetheboss. He also did a video diving a bit deeper onto that part of this company and how it kind of just feels suspiciously like a ZTE phone at this point.

13:28 Also, the longer you look at their website, it’s obvious the more it just reads like AI slop designed it to just get picked up by search engines by using as many buzzwords as possible. That’s actually why I think they got so much stuff on their site just wrong. All the camera stuff before about having the world’s first mechanical zoom, which doesn’t make any sense. The physical variable aperture stuff, which was just made up.

13:50 Also, their site says the phone has a Snapdragon 8 Elite Supreme, which is not a real thing. That’s not a chip that actually exists. There’s just so many endless pages on their website with jumbles of words that don’t really mean anything.

14:05 And honestly, it all checks out. Like, there was no way that this was going to be worth it from the beginning when you heard that price tag. The only way that this could maybe be worth it is if that concierge service actually works and gets you whatever you want because there’s no subscription price. Like you just buy the phone, which is expensive, but then you get infinite 24/7 access for it to book whatever you want and skip lines and do things for you.

14:31 That theoretically could be worth it, but that’s a big if. I would say my experience suggests it’s not the most capable thing in the world. But benefit of the doubt, maybe my task was too small. Maybe 9 hours to order a t-shirt was reasonable because it’s supposed to take 9 hours to get a luxury yacht instead. I don’t know.

14:52 But I would also think that $5,000 one-time payment for a 24/7 365 infinite concierge service is probably not a very good concierge service. And you know what? That’s the thing about phones at this point. It’s just a phone. Like they’re all doing the same thing. It makes phone calls. It runs Android. It takes pictures. It uses apps. Whether it’s $50 or $50,000.

15:15 This one just happens to be a crudely skinned Android phone designed to take advantage of people with way more dollars than cents. Get it? Thanks for watching. Catch you next time.