A gold-plated Samsung Galaxy S6 is… not that much more expensive than a regular one

Vietnamese company Karalux specialise in gold-plating things, including roses, bits of cars, and tech. Having previously gold-plated an iPhone 6, they’ve now turned their attention to the newly-released Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.

Unlike the gold version available at Harrods, it’s not just gold-coloured, but actually coated with 24K gold.

The process sounds pretty involved:

“It takes 3 straight working hours for Karalux’s engineers to complete a gold-plated version of the Galaxy S6 in over 10 different stages including treating surface, activating surface and coating many different precious metals layers, and finally coating a thin 24K gold layer outside. It is also coated a Nano layer to prevent from being corroded…”

But despite all that workmanship, and a layer of 24K gold all around the edges of the phone, the finished item doesn’t actually cost that much more.

You can grab a gold-plated Galaxy S6 from Karalux’s eBay account for $1300 (about £888) for a 32GB edition – which costs £599 SIM-free without the gold. For the S6 Edge, the difference is even smaller: a gold-plated one will cost you $1500 (£1024) whereas the standard edition is £760 SIM-free. Curiously though, the eBay listing mentions that it’s a 32GB version of the device – the S6 Edge doesn’t actually come in that size. It starts at 64GB. Buyer beware.

Still, when a gold-plated phone at just over a grand starts to sound reasonable, something’s gone wrong in the smartphone pricing world.