We check Vertu ‘cellphone for billionaires’ which prices £5,000 and has an AI concierge which may e book you a personal yacht: Is it value it?

It’s safe to say that I didn’t understand the Vertu Agent Q mobile phone upon first inspection. 

The initial problem was that it was set to Mandarin, which I can’t read.

Perhaps the other issue, however, is that I’m not a billionaire. Or a millionaire, for that matter. In fact, I possibly have less money than any other Vertu phone user in the company’s history.

This is because the phones – unveiled in October – retail at a considerable step above the average handset, and my budget. 

My £300, second-hand Iphone 13 comes in far lower that the £4,930 that the Vertu Agent Q model I tested sells for.

Should I wish to get my hands on an even more premium edition of the handset, I could find myself shelling out much more.

To buy the Agent Q Himalaya Alligator Gold & Full Diamond Collector’s Edition, I would need a spare £100,470 in my bank account. This is without delving into bespoke variations, which could potentially stretch beyond £1million depending on the request.

The phones are targeted at the uber-wealthy, and Vertu says demand is growing in Asia and the Middle East. 

This perhaps explains the starting language, with the company – despite pushing its association with England – actually being headquartered in Hong Kong. 

The small-lettered ‘England’ under the Vertu logo on the handset harks back to the company’s origins. 

Vertu was launched in 1998, and became the ‘it’ phone of the noughties – reportedly owned by Gwyneth Paltrow, David Beckham and Colleen Rooney. 

However, it went out of business in 2017 with its factory in Hampshire closing as a result. In 2018, it relaunched under new ownership. 

It couldn’t get me a restaurant table 

Vertu’s main selling point for the Agent Q is that the phone comes with a built-in AI concierge, accessed in one touch through the phone’s ‘ruby’ button. 

More expensive models offer access to a real-life concierge, but Vertu says the Agent Q’s AI version can reply much more rapidly and fulfil simple requests.

I decided to test this out, and asked the concierge to get me a table for that evening at a restaurant that told me it was fully booked. 

This seemed a simple enough request, and the kind of thing a wealthy Londoner might ask of their personal assistant. 

The AI, Vertu says, will learn from the user over time, building an understanding of their wants and needs. 

For example, it can pre-book a haircut at your preferred barber or hairdresser without being prompted, after it learns from your habits.

For less run-of-the-mill requests and when requests become complicated, Vertu says its human concierges can take over from the AI.

‘If you want to be on a private yacht next week, ask the concierge and they will make it happen,’ Vertu’s Harrods sales representative told me when I visited the store at Christmas.  

Unfortunately, the phone didn’t come through for me on my restaurant request, though, and I was left to eat elsewhere. 

What else does the Vertu phone offer? 

The phone’s other big draw for the rich and famous is privacy. 

The phone essentially uses an Android operating system that on its face is no different to other Android-enabled phones.

However, it allows users can switch between a ‘normal’ mode and an extra-secure one. Vertu likens this to an ‘impenetrable fortress,’ which even the most determined hacker couldn’t break into. 

According to Vertu, the secure mode includes end-to-end encryption, encrypted ‘vault’ storage and isolated operating systems, something it claims can’t be rivalled by any other phone brand. 

For those whose business interests or personal lives require some level of discretion – whether you are a CEO or celebrity – perhaps this sales pitch would hit the mark.

The phone also offers an air of exclusivity. While my friends and colleagues were more interested in the novelty value of my new handset, I can see how the phone might be a status symbol for those in the know. 

In the pre-Christmas tourism rush of Harrods, the Vertu stand remained tranquil in a way that much of the rest of the store couldn’t contend with.

This is not to say it had no customers – in fact I saw another interested party discussing their products with a salesman as I sat down to talk to the Vertu salesman.

However, there was noticeable lack of craning necks and queuing tourists. This is a phone for the privileged few, and I think its customers like it that way. 

The AgentQ isn’t the product for someone looking for the paper-thin minimalist products offered by the likes of Apple and Samsung.

Instead, everything about it is grand and extravagant. Their phones are put together by hand, using quality materials. With a leather back too, it is the first time I’ve noticed that a phone can smell nice.

It also has some real heft to it. Removing it from its box – itself a statement of quality and luxury, unlike the slim white boxes most smartphones arrive in – you are struck by its weight.

At 262 grams, it is noticeably heavier than the average smartphone. Even Iphone ‘plus’ models Samsung ‘ultra’ models weigh considerably less.

The camera is genuinely impressive, zooming effortlessly more than triple the distance an Iphone 13 can muster. Vertu says the Agent Q has the world’s only mechanical zoom lens on a smartphone. 

This, of course, is still the most basic model of the Agent Q. Should you want white crocodile leather, that’s no problem. Encrusted with diamonds, or your family crest embossed on the back, right this way sir.

‘You can buy a car for £2,000,’ the salesman says, ‘but you can also buy a Rolls-Royce for £650,000.’

‘And it’s worth it.’

He argues that Vertu’s products aren’t just for the mega-rich, but for normal people too – but I’m far from convinced. 

With a Vertu in my hand for a week, it was hard not to find myself beginning to drink the Kool Aid.

Yet I can’t see any application for a Vertu Agent Q in my own life, and am convinced it wouldn’t be a wise way of spending my salary – even if I had the disposable income.

If I win £1million on premium bonds or my £100 worth of Bitcoin skyrockets, that might change – but I wouldn’t hold your breath. 

The Vertu Agent Q is available at Harrods and via the company’s website.