Who wants a gold plated Galaxy Note 5?

I thought that the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge+ were already rather stylish looking smartphones, but Karalux, a Vietnamese gold-plating shop, has decided that a some additional 24K gold plating is in order for a real premium finish.

Costing VND 25 million ($1110) for a Galaxy Note 5 and gold plating, these models certainly don’t come cheap. However, if you already own the phone, Karalux will gold plate your handset for just VND 8 million ($355), which actually isn’t that unreasonable.

To construct the gold plated Galaxy Note 5, Karalux’s engineers take apart the handset piece by piece, then process and coat the case surfaces before dipping them into a tank of gold. The treatment applies to the sides of the smartphone, to the metal around the camera and LED flash modules, and to the power and volume buttons on the side.

The whole process takes 10 different steps before an additional protective layer is applied. Once the process has finished, Karalux claims that the new frame material is stronger than 7000 series aluminium and just one third as dense as stainless steel.

Karalux also gave the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge the 24K gold treatment shortly after they were released back in April. These two were priced at an even more expensive $1300 and $1500 respectively, so the Note 5 looks like quite a good deal, if you like gold.

Are there any takers out there?