Simply put, the LG Prada is the epitome of elegance and style. It fits the very definition of a fashion phone, and is quite possibly one of the most attractive handsets we’ve ever seen. Decked out in a lightweight piano-black shell, the Prada has a minimalist design, with smooth rounded corners and a touch of silver adorning its sides. It looks like a miniature version of a fancy plasma TV or a piece of high-class contemporary art. The design focus extends even to its packaging; the phone comes in a trendy black box fit for jewelry, plus a hard leather case with an embossed Prada logo. We would advise that you keep it in the case most of the time, since the Prada’s black finish attracts fingerprint smudges like a magnet. The phone is also marvelously compact at 2.13 inches wide by 3.89 inches tall by 0.47 inch deep and weighing in at a scant 3 ounces. Because it’s so slim and lightweight, you will have no problem slipping it into a pants pocket or a small clutch purse for a night out on the town.

Speaking of the touch screen, you’ll need to use it with your finger to navigate the phone, as the Prada does not come with a stylus. Also, since it’s almost entirely touch screen with just a few keys, you’ll need to get accustomed to dialing and texting without any tactile feedback. Surprisingly, this went a lot better than we thought. The screen’s sensitivity was just right, and we had no problem dialing numbers with the virtual keypad. Texting messages was a little trickier, though, as the Prada does not provide a virtual QWERTY keyboard; rather, you have to text messages with a virtual alphanumeric keypad just like on a normal phone. If we concentrated hard enough, we managed to text normally, but it did require a bit of precision on our part and there were many times when our fingers slipped and we pressed the wrong key by mistake. Again, it wasn’t too difficult, but it does require a bit of a learning curve. And of course, you won’t be able to dial by feel.

The LG Prada phone is truly unique and thus has no direct competitors. With its touch-based user interface it outranks all current fashion mobiles.

When it comes to product packaging LG already have a tradition of offering their products in high-quality retail packages that are visually attractive as the handsets themselves. The LG Prada phone makes no difference to that rule. The Prada phone retail box is a black cube and the contents are positioned on different levels inside the box.

Key Features:

• Exclusive design and slim form factor
• Full touch-based Flash user interface
• 3″ TFT display with a WQVGA resolution (400 x 240 pixels)
• 2 megapixel camera with auto focus
• Shoots video in WQVGA resolution
• Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP stereo support
• microSD memory card slot
• Office documents viewer
• FM radio
• Standard 3.5 mm audio adapter

The LG Shine personifies its name perfectly. Not only does it shine, it positively gleams. It has a lovely polished-metal exterior and a downright sparkling mirror-finish display that exudes luxury and sophistication. In fact, you can use the display as a small compact mirror when the phone is in standby mode. Measuring 3.93 inches tall by 1.99 inches wide by 0.59 inch thick and weighing about 4.23 ounces, the Shine has a solid stainless steel body that makes it feel very sturdy in the hand. The Shine’s slider mechanism feels solid as well, requiring a firm push so it can slide smoothly. Similarly to the KE970, however, we do wish there was some kind of thumb grip near the phone’s chin to make it easier to slide open–as it is, our fingers often slipped on the phone’s glossy surface instead.

LG has made a name for their fashionable handsets. The appearance of the original LG Chocolate took the mobile market by storm. The next high-end mobiles by the manufacturer tried to retain the “wow” factor while in the same time developing the functionality more and more. The LG KE970 Shine really shined in our hands and in the eyes of all the people around us as it provoked deep interest and fascination. Well, we liked the device at first glance and we were more than hesitant to explore its capabilities.

Before we start with our review, let us just mention that the Shine has a 3G-enabled twin brother – the LG KU970 Shine. They are real twins but only as far as looks are involved. As it turned out the two handsets are totally different devices when it comes to user interface, hardware used and features implemented. Today we will start by reviewing the KE970 but expect our GSMArena review on KU970 within a week.

The phone comes with a built in music player which supports all popular music formats including MP3 format & provides high quality sound. The user can download their favourite tunes which can be played out loud as a ringtone or listened to thorough the headphones for a private listening experience. The LG KE970 Shine comes with all the organiser features the user will desire including a calendar, calculator, alarm clock, stopwatch & an easy to manage phone book. The user can play the preloaded Java™ games or download more games to suit their gaming requirements.

The LG KE970 comes with a built in Internet browser which the user can access from the phones main menu. The user can access the WAP Internet browser & enjoy a mobile Internet experience on the their mobile phone. The LG KE970 Shine comes with Bluetooth® Technology which allows the user to enjoy a wireless connection between their LG KE970 Shine & any Bluetooth® compatible device including a wireless headset. The phone comes with a USB connection which allows the user to connect their phone to their home or office PC using a USB cable which makes transferring file easily for the user. The user can use their phone in Europe & the majority of the USA as the LG KE970 Shine comes with tri band technology which works over GSM 900, GSM 1800 & GSM 1900. The phone will automatically switch better GSM network bands without the user knowing.

LG’s newest mobile treat, the VX-8500 Chocolate offers minimalist-inspired style and a silky-smooth slider design. Deluxe features include support for V Cast Music, glowing touch-sensitive navigation keys, a powerful integrated music/video player, a 1.3 megapixel camera/camcorder, stereo Bluetooth capabilities, and a microSD memory slot for extra storage. If you value extreme style mixed with powerful substance, this is the phone for you. And now, the VX-8500 is available in white chocolate.

Design
The phone features a seriously attractive open-faced design with an internal antenna and a vibrant 240 x 320 pixel, 262,000-color TFT/TFD display. A touch sensor click wheel, similar to iPod, and sliding design set the phone apart stylistically. Opening the slider reveals a numeric keypad, as well as the 1.3-megapixel camera and LED flash, which are housed on the rear of the phone. The volume and voice slide keys are on the left of the phone, while the music, camera and “end” keys are on the right side. A memory card slot is provided for MicroSD/TransFlash memory cards of up to 2 GB capacity (additional cards sold separately). The phone includes 512 MB of internal memory.

Calling Features
The Chocolate boasts powerful calling functions, such as speaker independent voice dialing, which makes it easy to call contacts by simply saying their names. No prior voice training is required and you can even speak individual digits to the phone for quick dialing of numbers you know by heart. And because the Chocolate is Bluetooth enabled, wireless headsets can be configured with the phone for total handsfree operation.

The Chocolate’s internal memory can hold up to 500 contacts for quick access to email addresses and phone numbers. The phone lets you easily assign pictures as well as ringtones to your most common callers. In addition to vibrating alerts, the phone supports polyphonic ringtones, and a number of ringtones come preloaded on the phone and more ringtones can be downloaded from Verizon’s Get It Now service. Lastly, the Chocolate’s GPS location technology pinpoints your exact location when you dial 911.

The LG U900 is a 2006 model mobile phone. The handset comes with 1.3 MP camera and 72-voices ringtons support. MobileWhack.com reviews the LG U900 and writes, “LG Electronics keeping in mind the Sports event of the year FIFA World Cup 2006 just recently in Italy unveiled the LG-U900 DVB-H mobile phone which will be fully capable of viewing the world cup live on the handset. This has been possible due to the joint efforts of top industry guns like Hutchison 3 Italia, Microtune and of course LG. If you remember, LG had first showcased the U900 handset at a ceremony in Rome, Italy on April 27 and one also found the phone making an appearance at CeBIT. Hutchin 3 italia a leading Italian mobile telecommunications service provider will broadcast the event on mobile phones.”

The LG,s UMTS(WCDMA) DVB-H phone, the LG-U900, is a mobile TV broadcaster with a wide-swing screen. Its premium digital broadcasting functions include ESG (Electronics Service Guide) and CAS (Conditional Access System). These functions shall support enhanced business models for mobile and broadcasting operators.Users can watch TV for up to three hours because of the phone’s long battery life. The LG-U900 is also equipped with a 1.3 mega-pixel & VGA digital camera, an internal memory capacity of 58MB.The UMTS(WCDMA) DVB-H technology was improved from DVB-T, European terrestrial digital broadcast technology to become the European mobile broadcast standard. It provides high-speed data transmission, various channel services, a high-resolution image and strong mobile broadcasting.

If you liked the LG Prada or are considering an iPhone, then the LG Viewty should definitely be top of your list of phones to check out first. Touchscreen phones are the hot product of 2007/2008 and LG have a proven track record in this area with the LG Prada. The Viewty is basically a souped-up Prada without the designer logo, and it’s a very accomplished product. We loved the Prada’s touchscreen user interface, and the Viewty retains the best features of the Prada, but with the addition of 3G, a 5 megapixel camera, an uprated video camera, more memory and longer battery life.

For the benefit of those who haven’t seen a Prada or iPhone, let’s recap the touchscreen concept. Not to be confused with touch-sensitive buttons (e.g. the LG Chocolate or Samsung U600), the Viewty has a touch-sensitive screen. This means that icons and menus appear on the screen itself, and you touch the screen to activate the “buttons”. The Viewty uses subtle vibration feedback to confirm when you’ve pressed a button, and you’ll very quickly get used to the concept. There are real buttons below the screen for making and ending calls, a jog wheel, and also side buttons for controlling volume, the camera and the music player. We liked the touchscreen interface very much, and the technology now seems to be mature enough for touchscreens to enter the mainstream. If you’re a fast texter you might find that the touchscreen slows you down a little, but the sheer pleasure of using the on-screen menus more than compensates for this. T9 predictive text is supported too. A stylus pen is provided if you find the interface too slow using your finger. The Viewty also supports handwriting recognition, so you should be able to find an input method that you’re comfortable with.
Adigital camera inside a cell phone is not exceptional these days. It becomes a different case when a 5 Megapixel digital camera is integrated in a mobile phone. And although there are more handsets equipped with a 5 Megapixel digital camera, for example the Nokia N82, Samsung G800 and the Sony Ericsson K850i, there is a vast difference in the quality of the camera. The KU990 is the first 5 Megapixel cell phone of LG. It looks like LG is starting to take mobile photography seriously. The Viewty is the successor to the LG Prada. The latter was introduced in the beginning of 2007. The LG Viewty is up to date with its large touchscreen, 5 Megapixel digital camera and multimedia player. The LG Viewty comes in a compact black box including a headphone, charger, CD-ROM and USB cable. We were able to test the LG Viewty extensively and our findings of this digital camera with cell phone function can be read in our LG Viewty review.
The user interface has been fairly well thought through. Four tappable icons at the bottom of the Home screen let you get to messaging, contacts, the dialpad and the main menu of the phone.

There is also a ‘swipe’ mode. Run a finger along the bottom edge of the home screen and a bank of nine icons pops up giving you quick access to features like the Web browser, games and apps, alarms, calendar and Bluetooth settings. If you want more than is on offer here, the main menu provides full access.

More impressively, you can use a finger to drag images you have zoomed so that only a part of them shows on screen. It is a smooth and easy process.This is a fairly large phone at 103.5mm tall, 54mm wide and 14.8mm thick. At 112g it is approaching the weight and girth of a proper smartphone.

The 3.0 inch touchscreen occupies pretty much all of the front of the Viewty. It displays 262 thousand colours and 240 x 400 pixels. It can be configured with one of three themes: ‘Black’ is a simple black background theme. ‘Silver’ offers a lighter grey background with some graphics that whizz onto the home screen for no apparent reason. But ‘Fish’, aaah ‘Fish’ is delightful. On the home screen a goldfish swims against a blue background. Put a fingertip on the screen and the fish swims towards it. Yes it is silly, yes it is trite, but I like it.

Whatever theme you choose, the home screen has a set of animated arrows running along its bottom edge. Sweep a fingertip along them and a 3×3 bank of icons pops up offering tap-access to Web browser, messaging, profiles, games and apps, memo, alarms, my stuff, calendar and Bluetooth settings. Sweep again and this menu disappears. The sensitive area is wide enough that you hit it right every time, and so, crucially, this part of the touch screen element works well enough to use intuitively and regularly.