Hanmac’s $3,000 Android Smartphone Puzzles With Quad-Core MediaTek SoC, 480p Display
Apparently all it takes to qualify as a luxury smartphone is a weird design, underwhelming specs, and an exorbitant price tag. Hey, don't take our word for it, just look at Hanmac's "New Defency" handset and then tell us if you see a different formula being used. It's one of two phones the France-based company just announced, both of which will be sold in China.
The other is a feature phone, though it's the oddly named New Defency with a bit of a steampunk aesthetic going for it that has it equal parts curious and perplexed. There's copious metal used in the construction along with metallic rubber elements, ceramic buttons, and 18K gold and titanium accents throughout. Each one is handcrafted and takes up to 30 days to complete. You can also have the phone engraved.
If you're into the design, that's fine, but what's really odd about the device is the component selection. All those fancy elements seem wasted on a low powered handset with just a 3.5-inch display and paltry 800x480 resolution, MediaTek quad-core 6590 CPU clocked at 1.2GHz, 2GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage, 3MP front-facing camera, 13MP rear-facing camera, 1,440mAh battery, and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean (not even KitKat, let alone Lollipop).
Some of those specs are serviceable, though the CPU and display combination certainly lacks bang for the 3,100 bucks this thing commands, and that's a starting price. User customizations could drive the cost up even higher.
This is far from the first or even the most expensive luxury phone we've seen, though typically they're not so underpowered compared to what's out there at any given time.
