Vertu Is Back With a Folding Phone Powered by—Surprise—an AI Agent Leave a comment

Vertu is a firm identified for making terribly gaudy smartphones with outdated know-how, luxe supplies, and eye-watering costs. Now the model is right here to satisfy the AI second with its first-ever book-like folding telephone, full with an AI agent on board.

The corporate introduced the AlphaFold smartphone on Thursday—focusing on enterprise executives—which comes outfitted with the Hermes Agent. This agent can purportedly deal with schedules and duties on a consumer’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 reminiscent of reserving 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 luxurious Nokia telephones (within the UK!) within the early 2000s. Every telephone got here with entry to a dwell concierge service. The corporate confronted headwinds with the smartphone revolution and fell behind the occasions. Vertu then modified fingers over a number of years, with varied acquisitions, ultimately shuttering its UK manufacturing facility and shedding employees.

In the previous few years, the corporate has been churning out luxurious Android smartphones once more—it debuted a folding flip telephone final yr that begins 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 not made within the UK, and in accordance with its web site, 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 opponents just like the Google Pixel 10 Professional Fold. Vertu says the hinge and display screen structure have been examined to resist 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 know-how that is been making waves in Chinese language smartphones and has solely lately made its means into Western smartphones from the likes of Motorola. There’s 65-watt quick charging, a 120-Hz display screen refresh charge for the interior 8.05-inch display screen, and a 6.53-inch outer display screen. There is a triple-camera system with a 50-megapixel foremost digicam, a 50-megapixel ultrawide, and a 5-megapixel telephoto.