LG Prada Review: A Trendy Mobile Phone for Designer Whores

LG Electronics, a pioneer in consumer electronics and mobile phones, and PRADA, one of the world’s leading brands in the luxury goods industry , unveil the first completely touch screen mobile phone. The PRADA Phone by LG (KE850) is a real breakthrough in the industry, as it is a unique, sophisticated and elegant mobile phone with the first complete advanced touch interface. LG and PRADA have worked closely together on every aspect of the product, from handset development to marketing combining the attention to detail and uncompromising quality of PRADA design with the trademark technological innovation of LG mobile. The mobile phone is smaller than its fruity peer at just 98.8 x 54 x 12-mm resulting in a more compact, 3.0-inch display presumably with that 240 x 400 resolution we heard about earlier. In case you're keeping track , the iPhone goes quad-band GSM with EDGE and WiFi in a 115 x 61 x 11.6-mm shell sporting a 3.5-inch, 320 x 480 display. Also, LG KE850 seems to lack any significant on-board storage opting instead for microSD to boost capacity. Like the iPhone, it packs a 2 megapixel camera (with Schneider-Kreuznach lens and LED flash) and Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, USB Mass storage . However, there's no mention of multi-touch capabilities, an on-screen keyboard, or the accelerometer and proximity sensors found on the iPhone. The KE850 PRADA's UI is Macromedia Flash-based and opts for a minimalist, white-on-black display as opposed to the more, shall we say,OS Xish GUI we've already seen floated. Feature-wise, the mobile phone comes with a video player supporting MPEG-4, H.264, and oddly, H.263 normally used for video conferencing; a document viewer supporting Microsoft's PPT, DOC, XLS formats, PDF and TXT; an audio player with support for MP3/ACC/ACC+/WMA/RA formats; and a "music multitasking function for messaging," whatever that is.The PRADA Phone by LG will be available with prices starting from 600 Euros in mobile dealerships as well as selected PRADA stores in the UK, France, Germany and Italy as of late February, 2007, followed by countries in Asia such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore from late March, 2007. The Korean version of the phone is scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2007.