There are many things in life that I don’t understand and the new Sony Ericsson Xperia phone is one of them. Available online via Saks Fifth Avenue for a hefty price of $990, the Xperia phone is the world’s first mobile phone with a transparent liquid crystal LCD screen, offering ground-breaking miniaturization technology in the battery, memory card and antenna. Sure this might sound pretty and all kinds of fancy, but the two biggest selling points of this phone don’t really justify the $990 that it costs.

For one, the phone strives to achieve “pureness” by stripping down today’s modern phone to its basics by providing three simple functions: talk, text and time. That my friends, is all that the Xperia can do for you. Second, you also get a 24-hour concierge service in just about any part of the world with it. Neither of these functions justify $990, especially when it’s probable that the concierge service will be outsourced for a small fraction of what people actually pay for the phone.

If you’re going to charge that much for a phone it might as well also grate cheese or mow lawns.

Thoughts?