Did you know that some phones already use a sapphire screen?

Sapphire is the new buzzword in smartphones - the material, second only to diamond in terms of hardness, is almost impossible to scratch, and it’s expected to make a splash if Apple releases its iPhone 6 with a sapphire display.

But did you know that there are already phones with sapphire displays out there? It turns out that some luxury phone makers have used sapphire screens to set themselves apart from the competition, and one such device is the Vertu Ti.

An Android smartphone by luxury brand Vertu, the ‘handmade in England’ Ti costs north of $11,000 (£6,800) and offers a combinaiton of leather, stainless steel and sapphire glass for those swimming in pools of cash.

Sapphire, a luxurious material, is coming to the masses

It’s in fact not a new phone - the Vertu Ti was released in February 2013, but even then its features seemed sub-par: a 3.7-inch display with a resolution of just 480 x 800 pixels, a 1.7GHz dual-core processor, an 8-megapixel camera and all of that running on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Disappointing isn’t it?

One thing that’s not disappointing, though, is the fact that materials previously considered luxurious like the sapphire glass are about to become mainstream.