Bang & Olufsen Serene Video

Bang & Olufsen Serene Video Transcript

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>> I'm Nicole Lee, Associate Editor for CNET.com and this is the Bang and Olsen [assumed spelling] Serene phone and it is the most expensive phone I've ever held in my hands. It is 1275 dollars. As you can see it's like, it's like a piece of art, it's like a piece of sculptural work of modern art here. Doesn't even look like a phone. If you push it open, like so, it opens with an internal power assist motor, which in and of itself is a little bit insane. And on top here is the rotary style keypad as you can see, all numbers in a circle. In the middle of the keypad is the scroll wheel which is very reminiscent of the iPod click wheel. So you click in order to navigate through the menu and as you can see, I'm holding it sort of quote unquote upside down with the keypad on top and the screen on the bottom and the reason is because holding it next to your ear, Bang and Olsen says the screen will get smudged by your, by your face. That's why the screen is on the bottom instead of the top. As you can see on the bottom, it's a pretty bright screen. The only problem is that you can't really discern the color potential of this screen because everything is in black and blue and white. Features are pretty basic for a phone this expensive. Text and multimedia messaging, email, a little bit of web browsing, typical organizer features. There's also a VGA camera on the side here. We found this a really, really awkward position for the camera to be in, just because you have to take the photo sideways instead of what's in front of you. Which we think is a pretty bad design flaw. Another thing we didn't like about the phone is in order to access the battery and the SIM card, you have to use a proprietary screwdriver, this little, tiny little thing in order to screw and open up the battery cover. And if you lose this tiny little plastic thing, you won't be able to open it. The Bang and Olsen Serene phone also comes with a very attractive chrome finish [inaudible] like so, average battery life of 3 hours. Although we do have to say it being a Bang and Olsen phone, the sound quality was terrific. So if you want a sculptural piece of modern art as your cell phone and you're willing to plop down more than 1000 dollars and you're willing to live with some pretty serious design flaw, then the Bang and Olsen Serene may be for you. But I personally wouldn't recommend it. I'm Nicole Lee and this has been the Bang and Olsen Serene. ^M00:02:39 [ music ]