Buying an iPhone 6 from the Apple Store will set you back $199 if it's gray or silver. And if it's gold? Not a penny more. Not so for the Apple Watch, TechnoBuffalo reported, whose 18-karat gold version may come in at as much as $5,000 - more than 14 times the expected price tag for a "standard" timepiece.

"The news comes from French site iGen.fr, which has a pretty good track record for leaking Apple news," the technology blog wrote. "As expected, it looks like the Apple Watch Sport ... will be the cheapest option to choose from starting at $350. ...  The stainless steel Apple Watch will be available for $500, while the 18-karat gold edition could cost between $4,000 and $5,000."

The different types of gold - rose gold and yellow gold - explain the range, the New York Post explained. "Apple really wants its smartwatch to be on par with a luxury Swiss brand - with the price to match," the newspaper ironized.

No official announcement has been made, however, Time magazine pointed out. And even if the price tag turns out to be true, outrage may not be in order, the publication suggested.

"'$5,000?! For a smartwatch? That's nuts!,' a reasonable person might exclaim," Time wrote. "But $5,000 is actually a steal for an 18-karat gold watch. A quick perusal of Google Shopping reveals that full 18-karat luxury watches (not the merely gold-plated timepieces) tend to run upwards of $10,000 and can be as much as $30,000, though many of these watches use more gold than the Apple Watch will."

The difference, though, may be that the Apple Watch is not necessarily designed to be passed on through generations, the magazine pondered. "Who would pay $5,000 for a gizmo that's going to be obsolete in a year or two?" Time asked, suggesting a subscription model might solve this conundrum.