Vertu is a firm identified for making terribly gaudy smartphones with outdated expertise, luxe supplies, and eye-watering prices. Now the model is right here to fulfill the AI moment with its first-ever book-like folding phone, full with an AI agent on board.
The corporate introduced the AlphaFold smartphone on Thursday—concentrating on enterprise executives—which comes outfitted with the Hermes Agent. This agent can purportedly deal with schedules and duties on a person’s behalf and “connect with enterprise methods.” Brokers are large within the smartphone world proper now, with corporations like Google and Samsung providing methods for Gemini on Android smartphones to carry out duties akin to booking an Uber or ordering DoorDash. Vertu is cashing in on that development.
However the firm has a checkered previous. Initially, Vertu was a Nokia subsidiary that made handcrafted luxury Nokia phones (within the UK!) within the early 2000s. Every telephone got here with entry to a stay concierge service. The corporate confronted headwinds with the smartphone revolution and fell behind the instances. Vertu then modified fingers over a number of years, with numerous acquisitions, ultimately shuttering its UK manufacturing unit and shedding workers.
Courtesy of Vertu
In the previous couple of years, the corporate has been churning out luxurious Android smartphones once more—it debuted a folding flip telephone last year that starts at $4,300 (with a calfskin backplate, naturally). In late 2025, it unveiled the Agent Q, which it calls the “world’s first AI agent telephone for entrepreneurs.”
Whereas the corporate nonetheless claims a British heritage, its telephones are now not made within the UK, and in response to its website, its head workplace is in Hong Kong. Vertu spokesperson Viki You tells WIRED that the telephones are “nonetheless handcrafted,” however they’re assembled in China. “We’ve completely different factories,” You says, noting that the corporate sources its high-end supplies from different international locations, just like the full-grain calfskin from Italy.
The AlphaFold has all of the markings of a high-end Android smartphone. It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset from 2025 and is 11.8 millimeters thick when folded, 5.4 mm when unfolded. Not fairly as svelte because the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7, however not far off from rivals just like the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Vertu says the hinge and display screen structure have been examined to face up to 650,000 folds, which is greater than Samsung’s declare of 500,000 folds.
Inside is a 6,500-mAh silicon-anode battery, an up-and-coming battery technology that is been making waves in Chinese language smartphones and has solely not too long ago made its manner into Western smartphones from the likes of Motorola. There’s 65-watt quick charging, a 120-Hz display screen refresh fee for the internal 8.05-inch display screen, and a 6.53-inch outer display screen. There is a triple-camera system with a 50-megapixel major digicam, a 50-megapixel ultrawide, and a 5-megapixel telephoto.
