An unlikely player is entering the smartphone business with a device that's more a piece of luxury tech jewelry than it is a high-end gadget. The TAG Heuer Link – from the Swiss luxury watchmaker – is a 3.5-inch smartphone with a steel, 18-carat rose gold, or titanium finished case accented with rubber, calfskin, alligator, lizard or carbon leather trims. The phone is certainly impressive to look at, but it falls a bit short in the specs department.
The Link runs on Android 2.2 "Froyo", a version of Google's mobile operating system that's a couple of generations old, and comes 256MB of RAM. It features a Gorilla Glass coated display with 800x480 resolution, 8GB of storage via an included memory card, a 5MP camera on the back, and quad-band GSM HSUPA connectivity. A rather nifty looking crown button on the side gives you access to the SIM, microSD and what appears to be an HDMI port.
There's no mention of the processor powering this device. With a starting price of $6,700, TAG Heuer is clearly going after a very small niche rather than the typical Android user. The Link joins other luxury phones that offer exotic materials and bragging-rights pricing, including the Ferrari-themed Ascent Ti from Nokia-owned Vertu and dolled-up iPhone 4s.