Tonino Lamborghini Antares

The basics

If you thought your brand new iPhone 5s in gold was the cream of the crop when it comes to luxury phones, you haven't met the Tonino Lamborghini Antares. The exclusive £2,500 Android smartphone is one of the most expensive phones we've laid our hands on, but does it live up to its lofty cost? We first took a look at the supercar-inspired smartphone back in May, and now we've got one of our own to play with. Can it match up to its souped up inspiration, or will it stall right out of the gate? We fired one up to find out.

The good

Smartphones are, generally, expensive. The Antares takes that meaning to another level, and the result is impressive - to a point. For starters, your £2,500 nets you a finely crafted handset that is impressively matched by the packaging it arrives in. It's a solid aluminium box that's designed to resemble an engine block, and once you've pried it open, you'll find the Antares in its full glory, flanked by other Tonino Lamborghini accessories, each marked up with the iconic raging bull logo. From the battery to the wall charger, headphones and even the flat USB cable, you'll find Lamborghini styling exuding from every part of the package - and it all feels very premium.

The Antares itself is a spectacle to behold, as there's really nothing on the market quite like it. Vertu's range of luxury phones come close, but the hand-crafted solid stainless steel body of the Antares really makes it stand out, along with its hard angled design that's reminiscent of the cars it's inspired by. It's weighty, hitting the scales at 170g thanks to its construction, but it feels solid in the hand and it screams premium. Ours arrived in a black finish with a matching leather backing, but you're also able to grab one in gold, rose gold, black and stainless steel finishes, with various different leather panels too.

While the front is made up of the Gorilla Glass-protected display and the impressive five-Megapixel front-facing camera, on the back you'll find the Sony-crafted 13-Megapixel rear snapper, which performs well, giving you sharp images that pop full of colour and plenty of detail. While the camera app itself is sluggish at times, it works well enough and lets you snap photos quickly and easily. There's also plenty of storage onboard too, as the Antares packs in 32GB of built-in space, plus it can handle a microSD card up to the same amount, which is also included in the lavish box.

Tonino Lamborghini has loaded up Android on the Antares with its own selection of exclusive wallpapers and custom icons, along with pairing up the onboard Yamaha audio hardware with an app to take advantage of it. The interface has barely been modified from the stock Android experience, which will please fans, but you might have expected a lot more from a £2,500 phone, especially after seeing the lavish transformations that the likes of Samsung, LG and Sony have done with their customised Android skins. That said, we're pleased with the battery life the Antares offers, as thanks to its middling specs, it won't burn through its 1,500mAh battery like its inspirations do petrol. We got a full day of use out of the Antares, with plenty of battery life to spare at the end of the day, meaning you'll be able to get plenty of use out of the Antares with just a single charge.

The bad

Once you've gotten past all the glitz and glamour, here's where things fall apart for the Antares. While it's a gorgeous phone in the hand, under the bonnet, its specs don't match up with its speedy heritage. You'll find it armed with a just 1.5GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM, meaning it won't keep up with the current speed demons of the smartphone world, such as the 2.46GHz quad-core processor crammed into the LG G3. It works fine for your everyday tasks such as listening to music, checking Facebook, updating Instagram, browsing the web and playing the occasional game, but for £2,500, you might feel a little shortchanged in the performance stakes.

The screen is also disappointing, measuring up at just four-inches, which feels extremely small compared to the phablet giants we've seen crop up, and even leading flagships which range from five to 5.5-inches. The size isn't the only negative point, as it only packs in a paltry sub-720p display with a resolution of 960x540. If you're after a top quality display from what should be a high-end handset, you won't find it here, and it makes the LG G3's cutting edge Quad HD screen seem like a bargain.

Unfortunately, you won't find the latest Android 4.4 KitKat included either: disappointingly, it ships with 4.2.1 Jelly Bean, and will only be updated when Tonino Lamborghini sees fit, meaning you're stuck with an outdated version of Android as soon as you fire it up. Connectivity-wise, you'll find the Antares armed with the usual Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and microUSB, along with handy MHL support in the port, although it is missing NFC capability, which is a missed opportunity for an Android blower. We're used to seeing NFC packed into all sorts of Android handsets, and at its price-point, you'd expect to see the handy quick-paring feature packed in too. More importantly, it's also lacking high-speed 4G LTE too, which is a missed chance for a brand that's associated with speed - and you'd expect a phone with an exceptional price-tag to pack in the latest 4G tech too.

The bottom line

For £2,500, you'd have to have more money than sense to splash the cash out on the Antares. Even with its luxurious materials and extravagant build quality, what's under the hood just isn't worth the cash - you can get plenty more phone, for much less money. Only grab it if you really do want to stand out from the crowd with a limited handset, as that's because you'll be the only one toting one and left in the dust by cheaper, speedier blowers.