The Nokia 8850 was the pinnacle of sleek design in 1999.

Original Nokia specifications are HERE

This gorgeous top of the range phone was the brainchild of Frank Nuovo. Nuovo studied industrial design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and joined Nokia after working with the renowned studio Designworks. In 1995 Nuovo established a Nokia design unit to influence and steer the company through design quality.

According to Frank: "This never made it to market in the U.S. When this first came out in Asia, it was going for twenty-eight hundred dollars. It was unbelievable what was happening. Take this stylistically--I call this the pressure wave." Nuovo caressed two little ridges on the lower half of the phone. You wouldn't even notice them if you were not looking for them. "Think about cars, aerodynamics, wind tunnels. Look at our styling here--it is so copied around the planet. The language we have put forward is about the emotion of speed and increasing velocity. The influence of the auto is there, of course. But it's not about cars. It's about movement, and it's about"--he paused before delivering his mantra--"the attempt to do one thing well."

Yeah, anyway, irrespective of its emotional velocity, it looks nice and works well. The battery life on this phone is truly remarkable as it was one of the last top of the range phones prior to the the introduction of battery-sapping colour screens. The talk-time was up to 3 hours and 45 minutes and the standby time was up to a magnificent 170 hours - Yes, over 7 days!!!

Frank Nuovo now heads the Vertu project which is Nokia's ultimate luxury phone division with phones priced up to €24,000 for the standard platinum model. Some of the custom creations reach up to £80,000. Unless you need a really extravagant tax-loss (and I don't) I cannot see how anyone could justify this sort of obscene expenditure. So you can leave that trinket off my Christmas list thanks very much.

See the outrageous baubles here: www.vertu.com

The true aesthetic classics in the Nokia history are the 8810, 8850 (above) and the 8910/8910i. This classic line was continued with the new 8800. 

We have limited stocks of these classic 8850 phones which are unlocked and work with all UK and European networks (except 3)

 Nokia 8850 Refurbished with Battery and charger £99 plus £9 worldwide delivery

Nokia 8890 Refurbished with Battery and charger £99 plus £12 worldwide delivery. 

This 8890 phone is unlocked and will work with O2 and Vodafone in the UK, plus will work on the GSM1900 band in the USA with US network providers