Buttons set into the elegant metal casing allow you to adjust the volume, select music titles, take phone calls and activate voice control or personal assistant features.
At half the cost of traditional metal stamping, hydroforming may well be the secret to low-volume production on models that might appeal to a narrow group of buyers.
Its body is constructed entirely of plastic, save the aluminum power button up top and volume rocker on the side, plus the sliver of metal serving as the earpiece grill.
The ex-Soviet producer of beryllium, a plant called Ulba, was trying to export that metal to the US. The sole US producer (in any volume at least) was Brush Wellman.
The only other noticeable breaks from the flush metal housing are a curious division surrounding the side-mounted dedicated hardware keys (power, volume rocker and camera button) and a flimsy flap on the opposite edge that hides ports for micro-HDMI and micro-USB.