Precious Phone :)

Check it Apple, LG just went official with their iPhone look-a-like LG KE850 Prada phone which they proudly tout as the world's "first completely touch screen mobile phone." Er, unless you consider the ones from Motorola, HTC, and others. Still, this is more than likely a dig at the iPhone which they can rightly make since the KE850 will hit select mobile shops and PRADA stores in the UK, France, Germany and Italy at the end of February and parts of Asia before March is through. Sadly, the KE850 is a non starter for the US market since this version is limited to tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 with EDGE data. It's 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 (and we know you are), 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, the 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. 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 KE850 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. How much? €600/$778... that's how much. Still, a compelling choice for those who can't wait for the iPhone's Q4 European introduction or 2008 Asia launch.