Can a Little Cell Phone Lust Be a Good Thing?

When some folks say their phone is worth a million bucks they're not kidding! According to CNN, GoldVish, a luxury communications phone provider, sold its "Le Million" phone (named for its price) to a Russian businessman who coughed up $1.2 million during the Millionaire's Fair in Cannes, France. The phone is made of solid gold and studded with diamonds. For those whose blood is not as rich, the company has 15 other models of luxury cell phones, which start at $24,000.

GoldVish may be the extreme, but it's not alone in "over the top cell phone" design. The race is on to create the Blahniks of cell phones. In the past few months we've seen Vertu's Diamond collection ($83,000), replete with rumors that Brad Pitt and David Beckham are both proud owners. Peter Aloisson, a designer of all things fine, uses gold and diamonds for Nokia and Motorola phones; prices start at $32,000. And, according to The Longest List of the Longest Stuff, David Morris International of London created and sold a cell phone for $104,050 way back in 1996. The phone was made of 18-carat gold and the keypad was full of white and pink diamonds.

Funny—the rest of us mere mortals have never had to pay so little for cell phones! (Remember that in 1983, the honking, beast of a phone, the Motorola DynaTAC, which was the first FTC registered portable phone, sold for $4,000.)

Luckily, for most of us, cell phone prices continue to drop. Phones have also gotten smaller and lighter and they're always getting some new functionality. Call me crazy, but lighter, smaller, and new features are three great reasons to buy a moderately priced phone and change it every year or two. Who in their right mind would pay $1 million for a heavy phone made of gold that doesn't appear to have a heck of a lot of new age functionality? Never mind the fact that vanity phones enjoy the same lousy reception we all do.

Why Cell Phone Lust Is Good

Can anything good come of cell phone envy? You bet. Last night I had dinner with a friend, an eternal optimist. Here's the story she told me:

A young blond and quite beautiful woman engineer working at a high-tech Silicon Valley company was doing some public service by talking to kids from inner city, lower income schools in Oakland. She was trying to get them excited about a future in math or science, but wasn't finding much of a bond. Then her phone rang. She pulled out the pink Motorola RAZR. Before she could even answer the ring, she was tapped as "cool." And, by association, so was science and math.

If swanky cell phones made of platinum and gold and studded with diamonds can convince kids that science and math are cool, well, maybe a little cell phone lust can go a long way.