LeDix Origine, the $312,000 Phone

French startup Celsius X VI II specializes in luxury mobile devices that fuse modern technology with centuries-old Swiss timekeeping. The company’s first model, LeDix Origine, is a limited-edition titanium and sapphire crystal phone that retails for €250,000 ($312,000). Assembling one takes six months. Another model, to be released in 2013, will retail for between €30,000 and €40,000. Celsius’s goal is to develop a handset that is completely powered by mechanics. “We want to be the Rolls-Royce [of phones],” says co-founder Edouard Meylan. “You keep it, most of the time, for your entire life.”

Photograph by Fabrice Fouillet for Bloomberg Businessweek; Crystal: Siede Preis/Getty Images; Butterfly: Don Farrall/Getty Images; Scale: Getty Images; Watch: David Toase/Getty Images

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