When designer brands decide to have a go at designing consumer technology, it can go either way.
Tonino Lamborghini is the latest to sign with a smartphone brand, and I got the chance to see and hear about the first examples of the partnership with Tecno at MWC 2026.
Like Pininfarina, which also re-debuted with a phone brand at MWC 2026, Tonino Lamborghini has a checkered past with designing phones. Will its new efforts make us forget the past?
Pininfarina is designing a flagship phone with Infinix, and there’s a lot riding on it
Exciting deal is a return to tech for Pininfarina, and a big push for Infinix
Bold claims
Big ideas
Tecno and Tonino Lamborghini mean business. The pair announced their partnership on stage during the Camon 50 series launch, with Tonino Lamborghini’s daughter, and vice president of the Tonino Lamborghini brand, Ginevra Lamborghini, appearing to talk through the shared vision, saying:
Technology integrates into our daily behavior. It anticipates needs and enhances performance.
Design is no longer static, but interactive, adaptive, and responsive. Technology is not separate from our lifestyle, it’s shaping it.
Excellence is about well-being, performance, balance, and about living better, not just owning more. This is why the collaboration we are presenting today is fully aligned with our brand DNA.
The project was born from the encounter between Tonino Lamborghini and Tecno, a global technology brand that shares our pioneering and forward-thinking mindset. When two strong identities collaborate, the objective is not to decorate a product, but is to infuse it with meaning.
First products spotted
A phone is just the start
Instead of just announcing a partnership, Tecno and Tonino Lamborghini actually had a collection of products to show off.
The most relevant to Android Police is the Tecno Pova Metal Tonino Lamborghini Limited Edition, a phone with an all-metal unibody with 5G capabilities (which Tecno claims is a world-first, but seems to have ignored the OnePlus Nord 4), a 241-pixel LED matrix inside the camera module, and a pulse light strip running down the back of the phone.
It’s certainly eye-catching, especially in the bright red color, and the metal body gives it real heft when you pick it up.
The flashing lights, clearly inspired by Nothing’s Glyph Matrix, give it personality, and there’s no getting away from who designed the phone due to the large brand name down the side.
It’s joined by a pair of earbuds, a laptop, and the Tonino Lamborghini Tecno Taurus mini gaming PC, which gets water cooling, a compact tower-style case, an Intel Core i9-13900 processor, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 GPU.
Release is unknown
Shared passion
The phone is a limited edition, and little was said about the release of the laptop, PC, and earbuds. However, all Tecno X Tonino Lamborghini products worked, so there didn’t seem to be any technical reason why they couldn’t be released.
Not everyone will immediately love the designs, but they fit in with Tonino Lamborghini’s range of daring lifestyle products. You only need to look at how it approaches sunglasses and watches (and, of course, sports cars) to understand it’s not a brand for shrinking violets.
However, as brands like Samsung work to create a lasting, familiar design language without taking risks, to see Tonino Lamborghini and Pininfarina, along with design-led tech brands like Nothing, push the envelope is fantastic.
Not the first time
A better start
Tonino Lamborgini has experimented with smartphone design before, at a time when designer brands were trying desperately to replicate Vertu’s success at making a name for itself with luxury (code for expensive) devices.
Notable devices include the Tonino Lamborghini 88 Tauri, released in 2015, for around $6,000. It had a 5-inch touchscreen, and was made of stainless steel and different types of calfskin leather. It also proudly wore the famous Lamborghini “raging bull” shield on the front and back.
Several years later, the Tonino Lamborghini Alpha-One was launched. It was also made of metal and leather, but was a little less daring than the 88 Tauri in its design, and also cheaper at around $2,500.
Global ambitions
Not just for Tecno
The Tecno X Tonino Lamborghini range is far more considered than these early examples, and will likely have much wider appeal because of it. It certainly seems like the collaboration bought out the best in Tonino Lamborghini’s designers.
This isn’t a partnership solely about design though. Tecno is part of Transsion Holdings, which also owns the Infinix and Itel brands.
Infinix has begun what appears to be a very exciting partnership with Pininfarina, while Itel has recently collaborated with color experts Pantone.
These partnerships help raise the global profile of each brand, and Transsion Holding’s ambitions in this area are clear. Whether they can help bring Tecno or Infinix into Europe, the UK, or even the US remains to be seen.
However, we’d welcome any brand brave enough to experiment with design, and forge interesting partnerships to make it possible.
