LG Prada Phone - KE850

The Prada Mobile Phone by LG is a real breakthrough in the industry, as it is a unique, sophisticated and elegant mobile phone with the first complete advanced touch screen. LG Prada Mobile Phone combines Prada’s attention to detail and uncompromising quality with the trademark technological innovation of LG mobile. Features include 2 megapixel auto focus camera certified by Schneider Kreuznach to capture and share the perfect party shot with either camera or video, Multi-Media Player (MP3, MPEG4, Document Viewer) with Music Multitasking (Messaging). Read more detals about LG Prada phone below.

The LG PRADA Mobile Phone introduces the world?s first advanced touch interface which eliminates the conventional keypad making the overall usage experience a highly tactile one. An extra wide LCD screen maximizes visual impact, allowing the user to benefit from several key features of the phone, including the 2 megapixel camera featuring Schneider-Kreuznach lens, video player and document viewer capacity. Above all, these features contribute to the phone?s beautifully sleek and simplistic appearance. Glowing icons on the face of the phone disappear when not in use to reveal a pure, un-adulterated black exterior. The phone is ultra thin (just 12 mm), nonetheless it hosts an array of additional multimedia functions, including an MP3 player and a music multitasking function for messaging. It also boasts an external memory slot, allowing the user to increase memory capacity for images, music and film clips.

The KE850 is fairly small and light in weight. Its 3.9" x 2.1" x .5" body weighs a mere 3 ounces, which means that the device it is most often compared with, the Apple iPhone, weighs over 50% more. Unlike the iPhone, though, the Prada phone does have a number of real off-screen buttons and controls. The call control and back keys are on the front of the device, a lock key and a multi-function camera/music key are on the right edge, and the ring profiles key, volume control, and charger/headset port are located on the left edge. With LG Prada mobile phone, View your videos and photos on one of the largest touch-screens available in a mobile phone. It is sleek and thin (what else would you expect from Prada?) and it’s just 12 mm thick. Turn the Prada phone over to take 400x240 pixel widescreen video or 2 megapixel photos.

There is, as you might have noticed, no keypad or stylus. All interaction with the KE850 takes place on the screen with the user’s finger. The UI defaults to a stark black Prada theme, but is best used with one of the other 3 available themes. The charming Butterfly and Fish themes actually place a small creature on the standby screen that can follow your finger around. The standby screen is also home to the clock, which is operated with finger taps and can be dragged around the screen.

The main menu system in the KE850 is arranged like tabbed folder pages full of icons. It is simple to understand and use. Most interactions with the KE850 work as expected and are quite intuitive, but the system is not perfect. Some of the on-screen controls, such as the scrollbars used in many places, are too small for large fingers to accurately use, which leads to some frustration at times.

One of the highlights of the KE850 is its 2 megapixel, auto-focus camera. The camera takes fairly nice print quality photos in most outdoor situations, though like most cameraphones the quality deteriorates in darker scenes. The KE850 can also record video clips in a number of pixel resolutions, including 400x240 pixel widescreen mode. Even though the KE850 supports Bluetooth stereo wireless headphones, its music player application is pretty weak. The player has no support for playlists or any method of ordering or organizing tracks that are copied onto the phone’s internal memory or onto the microSD expansion memory card.

In terms of making calls, the KE850 put in an average performance. Reception on the 1900MHz band used by T-Mobile was acceptable, but far from best in class. Audio quality was very good in general, though the speakerphone only put in an average performance. In our talk time tests the Prada phone managed a respectable 5.25 hours. The ring profiles system in the device is convenient to access and reasonably flexible in use. The contacts system also has a decent feature list, but is a bit difficult to use due to some touchscreen interface issues, like the aforementioned scrollbars. Suprisingly, the touchscreen worked reasonably well for text input. Unfortunately, the T9 predictive text input system is very poorly done, which will frustrate text aficionados.

Overall I was impressed with the LG Prada phone. It is a fine looking piece of electronics that will make just about anybody look good. Its feature set is decent, but it is the huge touchscreen display that really turns the heads. Would be fashion moguls will have to make some compromises in terms of usability if they want to add this device to their fashion accessory arsenal, but once you get used to it, the KE850 is a device you will love having around.

Pros of LG Prada Mobile Phone:

1. Good looking
2. Small and light
3. Nice camera

Cons of LG Prada Mobile Phone:

1. Poor T9 text input
2. Some user interface problems
3. Limited music player
4. Won’t work on AT&T/Cingular