LG Prada

LG Prada Review

Phone rating:

In a nutshell: The Prada phone is a stunning phone featuring a touchscreen display. It's Prada-branded and arguably the best looking phone currently available. It also features an array of gadgets including a camera, music player and a built-in FM radio. Unlike LG's other fashion phones (the LG Chocolate and the LG Shine), the Prada phone pulls it off - it looks cool and it's practical too!
Best buy: *Free* with half-price line rental from Dialaphone (Black) or Dialaphone (Silver); or £149.95 on Pay as you Go from Dialaphone (Silver).

Well, LG have been pushing fashion phones in a big way in the past year (especially the Chocolate and Shine phones), but now by teaming up with Prada, they have produced their most stylish phone yet. Wait, it's possibly the most stylish phone yet. It's so cool it's not even allowed to have the LG logo on it, but is Prada-branded. Yes, it's the LG Prada, or to give it its proper title, the PRADA phone by LG. The Prada phone is the embodiment of minimalist chic, with its gloss-black finish, slender size and um, hang on, no keypad! Yes, this is a touchscreen phone, with buttons displayed on the screen. These are not like the touch-sensitive buttons used in the LG Chocolate, but actually appear on the LCD screen and change according to the current menu function (see picture on right). There are two real buttons just below the screen for send and return, so you can at least switch the phone on and off without any trouble! There are also side buttons for controlling volume, the camera and music player. There's a choice of themes, but the default is black and white, which suits the look of the phone very well. When not in use, the screen virtually disappears from view, just like the Chocolate. The Prada has some specially designed ringtones too, which frankly we found irritating, especially the ones called "Noise" and "Man". You can listen to these on the PRADA phone website.

Now, let's talk about this touchscreen thing. In theory touchscreens are a great feature because 1) they're really cool, and 2) they eliminate the space taken up by a keypad so you can make a compact phone with a large screen. But in reality they suffer from certain disadvantages - mainly the fact that they can be difficult to use and can drive you nuts. Successful implementations include the Sony Ericsson W950i and Sony Ericsson P990i, which both have a stylus for using with the touchscreen. The LG Prada has no stylus, ('cos styluses aren't cool) so you have to use your fingers to press the buttons. The buttons are quite small, so you'll find it easier to use if you have small fingers. So, this phone may be better suited to ladies. However, if you have very long nails you may have some trouble. The menu system is actually very intuitive, and once you've got used to pressing the screen, you'll find it responsive and easy to use. Texting is done via the virtual numeric keypad, which supports T9 predictive text. This is probably the hardest thing to get used to. If you send a lot of texts, you should think really hard before choosing the Prada. On balance, the touchscreen interface is OK. Some may find it annoying; others not. In any case, sometimes you've got to suffer a little to look good! One other thing to point out is that the screen and black casing will get covered in fingerprints very quickly (unless you wear Prada gloves when handling the phone.) Prada have thoughtfully provided a branded LCD cleaner, so you can look elegant even whilst cleaning your phone. There's also an exclusive leather case, but why hide away something this pretty?

Normally when a phone looks this good, the other functions tend to let it down. But with the Prada, it doesn't just look nice, it does all the tech stuff too. Nice to know when you're spending £400 on a phone! We're going to rush this bit, because the tech stuff is probably not what most Prada users need to know. Here goes: 2 megapixel camera with flash - not the best ever, but good enough for snapping friends in restaurants (or wherever owners of Prada phones hang out); music player; FM radio; email with support for MS Office attachments; microSD memory card (expandable to 1 Gybte); Bluetooth & USB connectivity; EDGE data transfer. Nothing significant missing. Battery life is slightly less than average (probably due to powering the huge screen!)

In conclusion, the LG Prada fulfils its role as a high-fashion accessory for those with enough disposable income to distance themselves from the Chav crowd. It does everything you'd want (and more too), it is very gadgety but without being nerdy, and it probably won't annoy you too much with its touchscreen unless you're very impatient. In which case, you probably didn't read to the end of this review anyway. The new LG Viewty isn't Prada branded, but incorporates a 5 megapixel camera and other improvements.

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Features of the LG Prada include:

• 2 megapixel camera with autofocus, light and 2x digital zoom
• Video camera
• Touch-sensitive screen: TFT, 262,000 colours, 240 x 400 pixels (3 inches)
• Music player (AAC, AAC+)
• FM radio
• 40 voice polyphonic ringtones
• Messaging: SMS, EMS, MMS, Email (SMTP, POP3)
• T9 predictive text
• Document viewer (PDF, PPT, XLS, DOC)
• Java games
• WAP 2.0, EDGE
• Memory: 8 Mbytes plus micro SD memory card slot
• Connectivity: USB, Bluetooth
• Phonebook (1,000 entries)
• Vibration alert
• Triband
• Size: 100 x 54 x 12 mm
• Weight: 85g
• Talktime: 3 hours
• Battery standby: 300 hours