Wednesday, June 4, 2008

CALLING TAG HEUER

Speculation has run wild with the Tag Heuer brand ever since they announced their foray into the mobile phone market. When Tag Heuer’s promotional teaser promised a phone made of stainless steel that would be “similar to Tag Heuer watches” it inspired a number of mockups that sought to anticipate how all of the functionality of modern mobile phones—including texting and .mp3 capability—could fit into a standard Tag watch case.

The Dialaphone mockup became the most popular, and you can see why. The Dick Tracy imagery it evokes is undeniably compelling:

Unfortunately, the Tag Heuer cellphone is simply a cellphone, though a remarkably well-crafted one. The Tag Heuer Meridiist also comes with a significant price tag, with prices ranging between five and six thousand dollars. The Meridiist’s screen is made of scratch-resistant sapphire crystal, just like their watches, and its case is crafted from watch-grade corrosion-resistant 316L stainless steel. Perhaps the most impressive feature of the Meridiist is its battery life. Clocking seven full hours of talk time along with a stunning 28 days of reserve power, the Meridiist’s power supply is among the best that today’s cellular phone market has to offer.

However, the Meridiist is treading ground that the Nokia Vertu luxury cellphone line has already walked. That’s not to say that there’s not room for two in the luxury cellphone market, but we were hoping for a little bit more from the minds at Tag. Perhaps someday Tag Heuer will take up some of Dialaphone’s concept art to create a cellphone-wristwatch hybrid that would be truly revolutionary.

Source articles: http://www.dialaphone.co.uk/blog/?p=103
http://www.tagheuer.com/phones/meridiist/index.lbl