© Celsius X-VI-II
On March 18, at the Baselworld watch show in Switzerland, a vaporous French company called Celsius X-VI-II will unveil the Papillon, a $300,000 mobile phone that is packed with the most advanced micro-mechanics of any gadget ever created.
All of this according to a recent profile in PCMag, one that frankly raises more questions than it answers. In the piece, Celsius co-founder Alejandro Ricart offers a vague picture of his team's ambition, citing high-end Swiss watches as the inspiration for his company's ultra-luxury, mechanical mobile phone.
"We want to take the useful functions of the cell phone and try to re-think them, and re-create them in a mechanical way," he explained. One such suggested mechanism is a kinetic hinge that powers the phone when it's flipped open and closed shut.
Sascha Segan, PCMag's reporter, seems pretty enthralled by the whole business, describing the device as a "hand-made art-watch with more than 600 mechanical components, many of which are visible to the naked eye."