Aston Martin - yes, that Aston Martin of James Bond fame - have announced the Aspire, a stylish gold/silver/black/white/rose gold Android 2.3 handset any secret agent would be proud of. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the $1,290 price tag for the basic models (rising to $1,590 when 24K gold is used in the cases) makes it live up to that Aspire name admirably.

There's a 3.2 inch HVGA display, WiFi, 3G, front and rear cameras and sports a MicroSD card slot for expansion.

Initially launched in Hong Kong, this is sure to have fans both shaken and stirred ;-)

A top performer?

The specs are decent enough but hardcore Android fans would expect more for this kind of money. The single core CPU runs at 800Mhz, which combined with a RAM size of 256M means you're not exactly gtting a spec which scaled up to the 3x price tag of the Samsung S3, for example.

Aston Martin know that none of its target market will focus on the specs, so presumably there are enough people willing to buy these to make them viable. And it is ubercool to have a golden phone which is actually made of gold!