Samsung being Samsung, they can’t go two weeks without announcing yet another variant of their 2013 flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4. Today, on Samsung Thailand, a new device has appeared called the Galaxy S4 Crystal Edition. As you can guess from the image above, it’s essentially a Galaxy S4, but with a couple of shiny rocks embedded into the battery door cover. The device will run you 20,300 Thai baht, which is actually only $635. There’s a small catch, however, and that’s the processor under the hood. It’s an Exynos, not a Snapdragon.
Will this phone eventually make it to other countries? Probably. The Middle East looks like the next obvious place for this thing to launch, because bling is in when you’re a billionaire oil barron. And if crystals aren’t enough to get the people around you jealous, there are also gold versions of the Galaxy S4 available. But let’s be serious, real ballers have Vertu phones.
Thinking out loud here, why doesn’t Samsung create a new class of device that’s not quite Vertu expensive, but slightly more expensive than a premium flagship phone today? I’m sure they’d have no problem selling a $1,200 Galaxy S5 that was built out of stainless steel, with 128 GB of internal storage, and the best components money can offer. Is there room in this market for such a device?
