LG Prada

Posted by T3 Online on Mon 29 Oct 2007

Like, hello!

Beating the iPhone by over three months, this is the world's first completely touchscreen mobile. Er, except it's not. There are actually eight buttons around the three-inch screen, including power, call-answer, and a keypad lock. Having to use them is a bit like being shown a really cool motorbike, then being told you're in the sidecar.

So, does the touchscreen actually add anything? Yes, but it's not all good. It makes dialling a number fun, and you can drag the clock face around the screen, and jab it to set the alarm. Select the butterfly or fish theme, and said animal will head for wherever you prod.

When it comes to more useful functions, it's less impressive. Texting is tricky as the screen doesn't recognise every nudge, and the cramped letters mean you often end up mis-hitting.

Scrolling through the phone book's pretty smooth, but not a patch on the iPhone. Going through photos is also a chore; it takes an age to load pics, then you play catch-up on the frustrated pokes you did while nothing was happening.

As you'd expect from LG and Prada, this is a real looker. The frame is reminiscent of the Chocolate phone, and pleasingly there are no tossy ringtones or 'stylish' wallpapers in sight.

Call quality is fine, but nothing else is worth phoning home about. The two-megapixel camera is standard issue, and there's a paltry 8MB internal memory (with microSD slot) for tunes.

This is undeniably a very stylish phone but it's no iPhone-beater. However, with Apple's rulebook rewriter still aeons away, this fills a gap.