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Toys Portables The Almighty Buck Hardware

A Million-Dollar Laptop Created 404

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the conspicuous-consumption dept.
aluminumangel writes "For those of you who don't know what to do with all your money, why not a one million-dollar laptop from the U.K-based company Luvaglio? With 128GB of solid state disk space, Blu-ray, and a detachable rare diamond that acts like a power button and a security key."
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A Million-Dollar Laptop Created More

A Million-Dollar Laptop Created

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  • solid state storage, diamond "key".... (Score:5, Funny)

    by gardyloo ( 512791 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @02:46PM (#18491837)
    ... and batteries by Sony! Dude, you're getting a bomb.

    • Article text (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26, 2007 @03:30PM (#18492509)
      As it's /.ed:

      March 23, 2007 UK-based bespoke luxury goods creator Luvaglio has created the first million dollar laptop. That's what the first of their luxury laptops will sell for. Full details of the laptop have not been released at this point, but it is known that it incorporates a 17" widescreen LED lit screen with a specially designed anti-reflective glare coating for clear and brighter image, 128GB of Solid State Disk space and a slot loading Blue-Ray drive. There is an integrated screen cleaning device and a very rare coloured diamond piece of jewellery that doubles up as the power button when placed into the laptop and also acts as security identification. Images here, video here.

      Luvaglio CEO Rohan Sinclair Luvaglio told Gizmag earlier today: "Unlike many of the highly priced products being released, we took our time to develop something out of the ordinary with real attention to detail. "

      "I didn't want us to simply re-house a laptop into a diamond studded casing, or diamond encrust the entire thing simply to make it expensive. We've put thought in from the keyboard down to the power charger. There is an integrated screen cleaning device and a very rare coloured diamond piece of jewellery that doubles up as the power button when placed into the laptop and also acts as security identification. We have used diamonds elsewhere but have given them purpose."

      According to Luvaglio, "the brand is committed to re-defining luxury in a few sectors, technology being one of them.

      "Many claim to produce luxury goods but we believe that the true element of luxury is having something that says "YOU", that money can't buy.

      "At present and from our previous luxury work, our initial clients will be chosen from this selection as we have already established trust.

      "The range to be released shortly would allow the owner to become the creator and visit our showroom at two or three well known upmarket stores we are in discussion with, whereby our selection of materials, finishes and accessories will be available to view and a choice selected.

      "The choice will be based on our selection but of course other colours and finishes can be done on request. We have access to diamonds that are simply rare and near impossible to get hold of, so are able to offer a very embodied choice.

      "The presentation boxes are of course supplied and finished in the choice that is selected by the client. Exact figures I am unable to provide at present due to negotiations but will certainly be more obtainable then our master piece."

      The first such masterpiece will sell for more than US$1,000,000.

      Posting AC so I'm no Karma whore

    • No way.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by CasperIV ( 1013029 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @04:00PM (#18492929)
      I won't buy one unless it's got a flux capacitor.

  • one.. million... dollars (Score:3, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @02:46PM (#18491839) Homepage
    a one million-dollar laptop from the U.K-based company Luvaglio?

    so that's what he wanted the money for!

  • Rare diamond? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dkoulomzin ( 320266 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @02:47PM (#18491847)
    I'm not that impressed when we talk about how expensive a laptop is on account of its rare diamond!

  • Creating it is only half the battle (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anne_Nonymous ( 313852 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @02:48PM (#18491853) Homepage Journal
    Now if we could just figure out how to provide one of these for each undernourished, undereducated child in Africa.
  • So in other words, the fastest depreciating piece of hardware ever has been produced and is now available for you to waste money on.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by N3WBI3 ( 595976 )
      How so? Lets say as a laptop its completely worthless in three years uts still going to be worth 99.9 percent of its value (and thats assuming diamonds and gold dont appreciate. Compare that to a 4k dell which will lose 99.9 % of its value in that time frame.

  • Man oh man... (Score:5, Funny)

    by brennanw ( 5761 ) * on Monday March 26, 2007 @02:50PM (#18491883) Homepage Journal
    I would hate to lose that key.

  • With a price of $1M (Score:5, Funny)

    by w.p.richardson ( 218394 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @02:50PM (#18491889) Homepage
    I am sure that it's the Blu-Ray drive that's responsible for the price. Seriously.
  • There is only one problem with a million dollar laptop:
    HEAVY DEPRECIATION

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Rude Turnip ( 49495 )
      That's the benefit of such a thing...it's advertised as a laptop with an attached diamond instead of a rare diamond that comes with a laptop. This whole thing is probably an accounting scam to let you buy an expensive diamond, but reap depreciation benefits (ie tax benefits) because in a technical sense you bought a "$1MM laptop." This idea is as flawed as that diamond probably isn't :-)

    • Re:Only one problem...DEPRECIATION (Score:5, Funny)

      by thewils ( 463314 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @03:18PM (#18492327) Journal
      Yep,

      It loses 50% of it's value the moment you get Windows up and running on it.
  • It'll be sad when a few years from now it will end up in some rich guy's basement next to his dusty TI-99 and 5.25" drive.
    • it will end up in some rich guy's basement next to his dusty TI-99 and 5.25" drive.

      Of course that's serial number 001 on the TI. After all, the purchaser of this is a serious Early Adopter.

  • Something for Paris (Score:3, Funny)

    by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @02:52PM (#18491935) Journal
    Now Paris Hilton and company can really start distributing porn in style.
  • i actually like that idea, kinda wish it was a standard feature. Well without the diamond at least. Maybe get 2 of them with your laptop just like when you buy a new car. I know you can do the same with USB sticks, but something non standard for and with an encrypted key could be very usefull for high security laptops.

  • 128 GB of storage (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tepples ( 727027 ) <tepples AT gmail DOT com> on Monday March 26, 2007 @02:55PM (#18491979) Homepage Journal
    128 GB of solid-state storage isn't that expensive. All you have to do is get a bunch of 1 GB microSD chips and put them in a big fat RAID, totaling under $2,000. So what's the practical use of this product, apart from conspicuous consumption?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by darjen ( 879890 )

      All you have to do is get a bunch of 1 GB microSD chips and put them in a big fat RAID, totaling under $2,000.
      How in the hell are you gonna get that to fit in a small enough form factor though?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        How in the hell are you gonna get that to fit in a small enough form factor though?
        A notebook hard disk drive is 100x70x10 mm. A microSD card is 15x11x0.7 mm. Theoretically, 600 microSD cards (without any card readers) would fit in the same form factor. Add space for the PCBs that the cards would be soldered to and for the RAID controller, and yes, 128 microSD cards should fit.
  • ... if they had an extremely rare diamond that was used as a battery.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lorkki ( 863577 )

      But then you'd just spend every new episode of your life looking for a new one because you overloaded the last specimen.

      (Que in the rest of the Star Trek jokes.)

  • 128GB Solid State is not a big deal (Score:5, Informative)

    by rolfwind ( 528248 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @02:57PM (#18492011)
    Pricewatch.com lists 8gb for around $80 and 16GB for about $160.

    So lets double the prices for whatever, and we are talking about $2500 of flash. Yes, too expensive to be a component on a notebook today, but really, the prices on this stuff is sinking.

  • They should use it to run the website (Score:5, Interesting)

    by roman_mir ( 125474 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @02:57PM (#18492013) Homepage Journal
    the website referenced in the story is /.ed Maybe they should invest in a million dollar laptop to run the site from.

    Anyway, this is Hedonism for the richest. There is no reason to have a million dollar laptop today, when the most expensive laptops don't go over 10K. The fact that there are dimonds on this thing just show that this is not about a laptop, this is about another pointless status symbol, like an adopted kid from Africa for some US celebrities.
    • "Anyway, this is Hedonism for the richest. "

      It also vulgar, there are people suffocating economically in our society, to think of the money that's being wasted on a fucking toy makes me sick, that people allow themselves to be dominated by rich people and absorb their ideology, when 90% of them will never ever be rich and the hyper competitive ideology is against their own interests.
      • It's called the lottery mentality. That's what happens when you don't teach people math and statistics. It's also why people are terrified of child molesters and terrorists and find nothing daunting about driving angrily while talking on their cellphone for 2 hours a day.

  • BSOD (Score:3, Funny)

    by phasm42 ( 588479 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @02:58PM (#18492023)
    I bet the owner will really feel special when their million dollar laptop bluescreens.
    • I bet the owner will really feel special when their million dollar laptop bluescreens.

      Actually it's a turquoise screen, or maybe lapis lazuli, now.

  • AWESOME!!111!!1 (Score:4, Funny)

    by noewun ( 591275 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @02:58PM (#18492031) Journal
    I've been looking for something to complement by gold-plated Hummer.

  • What I would do with One-million dollars (Score:4, Funny)

    by Enrique1218 ( 603187 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @02:59PM (#18492059) Journal
    Buy enough servers to handle the load when story of a one single laptop being sold for 1,000,000 dollars broke on Slashdot.
  • Computers used to cost millions of dollars routinely in the bad old days. What's new is that this is the first time that a million dollar computer comes in a form factor that's easy to steal.

  • If there's one thing that shows what's... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26, 2007 @03:01PM (#18492075)
    ...wrong with this world, this is it. Some people control enough resources that they can WASTE a million on one laptop, while others could build 10000 laptops with that money. Don't get me wrong: The rich should lead comfortable, even luxurious lives, but this is just wasteful. Its only value is in showing the ridiculous amount of resources that are at the buyers disposal, by wasting them on something that will be out-of-date in at most a year.

    • Sucker + Money = Woosh

    • Re:If there's one thing that shows what's... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bluesman ( 104513 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @03:42PM (#18492681) Homepage
      Nah, it's what's right with the world.

      How else would you separate very rich and foolish people from their money, aside from forcibly taking it?

      The best thing about this is that rich people create incentives for creativity and growth, and spending on luxury items just fuels that.

      Think about the laptop maker, web designer, advertising agency -- all of the people who make a living off of the sale of just one of these.

      Plus, the $1,000,000 is obviously far better off in the hands of somebody willing to use it for a laptop selling business than someone who would spend it on a diamond laptop.

      Besides, someone who is dirt poor in Africa would say the same thing about you. Why do you need to spend an amount of money that would supply a lifetime of food on a computer in the first place?

      In a perfect world, there would be no market for $1,000,000 laptops because everyone would be busy creating more wealth by curing diseases and solving energy crises. Since that's never going to happen, this is the next best thing.

    • You can't waste money (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NotQuiteReal ( 608241 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @04:06PM (#18493023) Journal
      The notion that money can be wasted (by spending it) is stupid.

      It all contributes to the economy, which helps generate more money. In this case, I am sure a lot of the million dollars for the laptop goes into the cost of goods - supporting everyone in the supply chain from the diamond miners to the jewelers and artisans who created the art/wasteful object of your loathing. Then there is the "profit". Either way the money is somewhere. For all you know the money might end up for some use for which you do approve.

      There is no difference, in principle, on people "wasting" money on luxury items than there is spending money any other way. When it comes right down to it, nobody "needs" anything more than food and shelter, assuming the world even "needs" people at all.

      There is a continuum from needs-wants-excess/your definition of waste.

      Personally I would not buy a million dollar laptop, either, however I think it is awesome that it is possible for someone to be able to do that if they so choose.

      If you think there is something wrong with this world now, you'll rue the day that it is ruled by people who think they know best how to run it for everyone else.

      • Re:You can't waste money (Score:4, Interesting)

        by inviolet ( 797804 ) <(gro.rettamsaedi) (ta) (todhsals)> on Monday March 26, 2007 @04:46PM (#18493701) Journal

        There is no difference, in principle, on people "wasting" money on luxury items than there is spending money any other way. When it comes right down to it, nobody "needs" anything more than food and shelter, assuming the world even "needs" people at all.

        True enough. But not all efforts are equally efficient. While the actual spending of money cannot -- itself -- waste anything, it can induce wasteful behavior. For example, suppose I spend $1000 hiring someone to stand on their head. By my spending, I caused one person to waste two person-days' worth of effort.

        That said, I agree with you: this insane laptop is a great way to keep the wealth moving around. Its construction consumed about $2000 worth of actual effort, yet it liberates a million dollars from a concentration (i.e. from a rich person) to be spread around again.

        Ditto with all luxury objects, for that matter. The higher the markup (i.e. the greater the difference between price and the effort to produce it), the more efficiently it dilutes wealth concentrations. Servants, meanwhile, are at the opposite end of the efficiency spectrum: low price but large number of person-hours consumed.

    • Re:If there's one thing that shows what's... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WhiplashII ( 542766 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @04:07PM (#18493027) Homepage Journal
      but this is just wasteful.

      Incorrect. This is one of the most useful items in society, a way to transfer economic power from the idiots that buy gold plated laptops to the genius that is selling one...

      Let's face it, we need to remove as much money as possible from anyone that would buy one of these!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tompaulco ( 629533 )
      The type of person who would buy this laptop is not Bill Gates, with his billions, but some upper middle class guy who makes maybe $200k a year. He could get rich if he would save his money and invest wisely, but instead spends more than he makes on a McMansion, fancy cars, and gimmicky electronics. He will have nothing to leave to his children, and is probably one paycheck away from having to declare bankruptcy.
      Truly rich people reinvest their money to make more money and fuel the economy. They don't buy

  • Priceless... (Score:5, Funny)

    by xtracto ( 837672 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @03:01PM (#18492089) Journal
    Kick ass laptop to be the envy of your friends .... $1,000,000
    Coffee to show off your laptop in the cafeteria ... $ 100
    "Sorry, we're currently experiencing heavy
    server loads. Please try again in a few minutes."... priceless

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )
      Actually, it is gizmag's server that can't take it. Luvaglio's [luvaglio.com] site is probably quite a light load on a webserver, considering that it consists of just two pages - a homepage that says "By Appointment Only," and a page with contact info. No pics, no specs, not even a product announcement. Are we supposed to take these people seriously?

    • Re:Priceless... (Score:4, Funny)

      by IntergalacticWalrus ( 720648 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @05:04PM (#18493981)
      Kick ass laptop to be the envy of your friends .... $1,000,000
      Coffee to show off your laptop in the cafeteria ... $ 100

      Better ending:
      Spilling your $100 coffee on your $1M laptop... priceless
  • What a waste. For a million dollars, I'd at least want the thing to have a big freakin' laser on its freakin' lid.

    More seriously, I'd rather have a bad-ass server controlled by a laptop, and which uses the laptop as its terminal interface, perhaps with a OpenMOSIX-like distributed system.

  • It better be fucking bulletproof at that price, too. The "one million dollar laptop" — what does it do, go "nanah-nanah-nanah" when you lift the lid?

  • OLPB (Score:5, Funny)

    by IchBinEinPenguin ( 589252 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @03:05PM (#18492141)
    one laptop per billionaire

  • Huh (Score:2)

    by 26199 ( 577806 ) *

    Wonder what the warranty is like.

  • Oh it has Blu-ray (Score:4, Funny)

    by CrazyJim1 ( 809850 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @03:09PM (#18492181) Journal
    Now I can save money by not buying a PS3

  • Yea But.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by semi-old-geek ( 791138 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @03:10PM (#18492185)
    If I get it without an os it will only be $999,899.

  • But it will it run Vista? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by splatterboy ( 815820 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @03:11PM (#18492213)
    I hate to use cars as an analogy but TFA doesn't mention OS, and if its just a windows box - that would make it the computing version of a Ferrari chassis and body with a Chevy/Ford/VW engine... For a cool million I would think it should have Linux/Mac/MS running virtual with a Jeff Han/perceptive pixel gui... Seriously - if the craftsmanship and precious materials are the only metric here - its just a case-mod. Who made the mobo and cpu?
  • The pop-out caviar tray has holes in it. I give this 1 out of 10 diamonds.
  • Overheard in a Microsoft executive washroom:

    J Allard: Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these babies.
    Bill Gates: What do you mean, "imagine?"

  • Expensive... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Arceliar ( 895609 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @03:20PM (#18492361)
    I had heard that Vista licenses were expensive...but damn...
  • While the novelty of a one million dollar laptop might be appreciated the only thing that impresses me about it is the 128 GB of solid state storage.

  • Colored diamonds, big deal. Just a case mod. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @03:21PM (#18492391) Homepage

    Colored diamonds, probably from the factory in Sarasota, Florida. [gemesis.com]

    The diamond industry is coming unglued. They're not that rare, they're not that hard to make, multiple companies are cranking out diamonds, and de Beers lost an antitrust suit [usdoj.gov], so the monopoly is coming apart.

    The resale value of diamonds is about 40% of list price. If that. (The phrase "dump value" is used in the industry.) Look on eBay for even cheaper ones. If you want real diamonds on your computer's LEDs, it won't cost you much.

    This is just another case mod project, one with delusions of grandeur.

  • With 128GB of solid state disk space

    How does that compare with traditional hard drives? I'd love to see some benchmarks on that. What does it do to boot time? Application start? Fun stuff like that.

    Yeah, I know it's good to have because it should be more drop-proof than a traditional mechanical hard drive. But something tells me that you're not going to treat a million dollar laptop like a football anyway, so what does this do for the buyer?

  • ...when you can buy one from Dell that's 100x faster?

  • I'd be careful when ordering one of these. They don't say how much the extended warranty costs, and you really should get the extended warranty (with accident and theft protection) when buying a new laptop.
  • /. headline: A Million-Dollar Laptop Created and has a diamond power button.

    In other news' headlines: A 10K dollars webserver destroyed and looks like it was hit with a diamond cutting tool.

    Gizmag IT people proudly exclaimed to newspeople "We got featured on Slasduhhh...what's that SMELL!?"
  • There was a Victoria Secret bra that I remember hearing about that had diamonds all over it and it cost a million dollars. Basically it reminds me of this because of one reason. It was just a freaking diamond covered bra, the bra probably cost 20 bucks but the diamonds upped the value, this device probably could cost 1K if you really worked at it (the solid state might make it 3K but still) except for the diamonds.

    This is just an example of someone putting a diamond in something. What's next me putting

  • detachable rare diamond that acts like a power button and a security key

    There a detachable diamond acting as the security key for a $1 000 000 laptop. Who thinks up this stuff? I can't think of a scenario where having a precious stone as the security key for the laptop is a good idea. If the key gets stolen you're SOL, if you lose the key you're SOL, and to replace the key will probably cost hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars.

  • What's rare about this diamond, does it have a cloudy likeness of Bill Gates stained into it or somthing ?

  • Early April Fools? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sherpajohn ( 113531 ) on Monday March 26, 2007 @04:16PM (#18493151) Homepage
    I checked the website - nothing there but a box with focus to enter something. A contact page. An address in London, that does not really parse as a street but a place. Google search on the company name yields nothing but this laptop - all based on the same article. Google search on the CEO yields a now "private" page on a site the "connects" business people. The cached page has a bunch of luxury names in it. Googel images even has a cached image of a young guy leaning on a car.

    This sounds like viral cow pies publicity grab or April Fools to me. There's a $350,000+ laptop noted here: http://most-expensive.net/laptop-world [most-expensive.net] - and its covered in gems. There's no way you can justify technology alone making this worth anywhere near $100,000 much less $1,000,000. I call BU-double-hockey-sticks on this story.

  • I wouldn't want it. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by timerider ( 14785 ) <[gro.esusnepo] [ta] [nnamoH.saihtaM]> on Tuesday March 27, 2007 @02:56AM (#18498559) Homepage Journal
    I Wouldn't want it, even if it were much cheaper and came without that diamond.
    Here's what I'd expect from the manufacturer of a laptop at the upper end of the price scale:

    - a bit more of a website than just a "contact us" form. For example, Spec sheets, driver downloads for every OS that can run on it, a support area.

    and here's what i'd expect from a laptop that is THAT HIGH above the upper end of the price scale:
    - full warranty replacement within 2 hours, 7 days a week, all around the world, with no extra fees.
    - full toll-free phone support, 7 days a week, all around the world, with no extra fees.
    - no matter what broke, the full laptop gets replaced, but with your data copied over. Even in case of destruction by fire etc (data recovery service included in maintenance contract)

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