This custom iPhone 13 Pro combines the newest and oldest iPhones - but don’t buy it
A retro-inspired iPhone at a futuristic price
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If you’re a diehardApplefan and want to show it, then Caviar (a brand known for making custom iPhones) might have the handset for you, as its latest creation fuses theiPhone 13 ProoriPhone 13 Pro Maxwith the original 2007 iPhone.
Dubbed theiPhone 2G, this modified handset is functionally an iPhone 13 Pro or Pro Max, but the back includes a piece of a motherboard from an original iPhone embedded in the Apple logo.
The rear is made of titanium and includes an engraved diagram showing the technical elements of the device, and towards the bottom it gains black PVD coating and houses Steve Jobs’ engraved signature.
This ‘iPhone 2G’ (which despite the retro name supports 5G) can be all yours from just $6,990 (around £5,290 / AU$9,780). That’s for a 128GB iPhone 13 Pro, with the price rising for more storage or for the Pro Max. Choose a 1TB iPhone 13 Pro Max and you’ll have to pay $8,610 (roughly £6,520 / AU$12,040).
Only 19 units of this phone are being made. Presumably that means 19 units of all configurations combined, not of each configuration, but that’s not totally clear.
Either way, this will be an extremely limited edition, which perhaps goes some way to justifying the price. Still, this is definitely one for the biggest Apple fans only, and even then…
Analysis: don’t buy this iPhone
We hear you, you love Apple and you want the whole world to know. Not only that, but you’ve got more money than sense. Add to that the fact that remarkably this is one of the more affordable iPhones sold by Caviar (which also sells an iPhone 13 Prowith part of a T-Rex tooth in itamong other things), and this seems like a solid buy, right?
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Well, not so much. For a start, the centerpiece of this phone is worth… approximately nothing. At the time of writing you can get an entire (broken but intact) original iPhone on eBay for just £55 (roughly $70 / AU$100), and a functional one for £155 (around $205 / AU$285).
So this isn’t valuable tech. Unless you’ve got a pristine original iPhone with the box and all the components, in value terms it’s a minor curiosity at most. And that’s for a whole phone – part of a motherboard (which no one except you will even know the significance of, unless you’re endlessly explaining it) is worth almost zero.
The titanium and the extremely limited nature of the handset add to the value, but even then, that dinosaur example we mentioned includes not just genuine T-Rex tooth, but also gold, amber and yes titanium too, and in the grand scheme of vastly-overpriced phones it doesn’t cost all that much more.
So if you really must buy a luxury novelty that will be out of date in two years, there are better options.
ViaCNet
James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.
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