News Release

Poeton coating is a 'key' element of the world's first luxury mobile phone

25th November 2004

 
Vertu, the word’s first luxury mobile phone manufacturer has specified a Poeton Industries’ wear resistant/low friction coating for the individual stainless steel key shafts of the Vertu Signature phone.

The Vertu Signature, with a Recommended Retail price from €6,300 to €29,200, is available in stainless steel, white and yellow gold and platinum. Each phone features a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal face, hard-wearing materials such as ceramic and titanium oxide and high performance AKG speakers.

The internal architecture for each phone is assembled by hand in Vertu's workshops from more than four hundred mechanical parts. Eighteen jewelled bearings are fitted underneath each key to ensure longevity and give the Signature keypad its unique and satisfying click. The eighteen key shafts are coated with Poeton’s high-hardness, low-friction Apticote 450 to provide a good wear surface. The coating protects the stainless steel keys, allowing the shaft to move smoothly against the much harder ruby bearing, prolonging the lifetime of the keys.

Poeton was involved in the early stages of Vertu’s product development, providing around 5000 shafts for the first prototypes. Since then, the success of the luxury mobile phone concept has seen order quantities rise considerably.

Trevor Amos of Poeton admits that the project challenged the company’s processing expertise: “We are used to coating high volumes of small components but the key shafts for Signature are so small that they couldn’t be processed with conventional handling equipment. We developed a special coating technique for Vertu Signature that enabled us to process the components in higher volumes, whilst applying the Apticote 450 coating accurately and uniformly.”

Vertu’s procurement manager, David Floyd says, “The Vertu Signature brings together the best in craftsmanship, precision engineering and tried and tested mobile phone technology.

“We challenged the world's most established manufacturers to craft each component of the phone, resulting in the filing of 74 patents.” he adds; “Poeton’s coating helps to provide tactile evidence of the quality and craftsmanship of the Vertu Signature.

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