The world economy is entering a new great depression, but there are still some people willing to splash out on diamond-encrusted mobile telephones in Japan.

Japan’s Softbank Mobile said Friday that its eight limited-edition phones, each studded with 537 diamonds from Tiffany and Co., sold out in just three days.

The phone, designed by the luxury New York jeweller, went on sale for about 13 million yen each (134,000 dollars) on November 1.

Diamond jewellers, De Vere’s of London have unveiled their beautiful diamond encrusted iPhone 3G, the “Angels Tears”.

This stunning Art Deco inspired Apple iPhone has been created by De Vere’s founder Philip De Vere in memory of his mother who died of cancer.

A number of examples are being sold to raise money for the research and treatment of women’s cancers. They are available for a limited time at £2499 (USD$4000).

“I wanted to create a damned sexy and desirable iPhone, capable of giving anyone’s thumbs an orgasm”. Philip De Vere said.

Vertu have launched in Hong Kong a new collection of Ascent Ti phones inspired by Ferrari’s cars. The Ferrari Ascent Ti collection consists of three phones directly inspired by Ferrari and named after their respective colors; a limited edition phone called the Nero and two special edition phones named Rosso and Giallo.

The Nero phone is an all black Ascent Ti made of titanium coated with scratch proof PVD with a red sapphire crystal pillow. The Rosso and Giallo phones are red and yellow receptively and feature PVD coated battery covers and keys, they feature ceramic pillows. The battery cover of all three phones has been redesigned to resemble the hood of a Ferrari and features a three dimensional Cavallino on the battery cover as well as a smaller one on the front.

The phones feature Ferrari inspired themes as well as ring tones featuring Ferrari engine sounds, only 2,009 examples of the Vertu Ferrari Ascent Ti Nero will be made. They sell HKD 70,000 HKD each ($6000)

Motorola’s going upmarket with its latest phone Aura, a luxury model featuring what the company claims is the world’s first circular display on a mobile device.

The Motorola Aura features a unique design in which the cover twists one hundred and eighty degrees to reveal the keyboard, it has a round sapphire crystal high resolution LCD display. The switch-blade design comes with 2 megapixel camera, 2 GB memory, video capture and streaming capability and about 7.3 hours of talk time.

The case of the Aura is made of chemically etched PVD coated stainless steel whilst the twisting mechanism is made of Tungsten Carbide coated gears and features one hundred and thirty ball bearings meaning each twist is identical.

“The hand-sculpted richness of Aura can literally be felt in its stainless steel housing, textures and patterns chemically etched into its surface,” says Motorola.

The Aura is available for pre-order now and is expected to be launched worldwide beginning in Q4 2008 for a cool $2000. It really looks elegant, but it also costs a lot !

LG have released the second iteration of their Prada phone named the Prada II. The Prada II phone is based on the first Prada phone but features numerous improvements.

It boasts of 7.2Mbps HSDPA 850 / 2100, WiFi, TV-out, FM radio, and a 5-megapixel camera. The side-slider also hosts a full QWERTY keyboard.

LG Prada II also has an FM radio and TV output, together with a full HTML browser. It uses a capacitive touchscreen, similar to that of the iPhone, but without multitouch functionality.

If you’ve got money to burn and the gold dipped iPhone, or the white gold iPhone were just too cheap, why not check out the Apple iPhone limited Diamond deluxe Platin Edition.

This time it’s not Goldstriker but Sayn Design that has come up with a platinum edition of the iPhone. Topping it off with diamond studded crown, Sayn has placed the dazzling cherries on the precious icing.

Coated with pure platinum, the only significant change about this gilded iPhone is that the iPhone button on the front is replaced by the Sayn Design crown.