LG Prada or Apple iPhone ???

LG Electronics has announced a touchscreen Prada phone that looks and functions like Apple's iPhone. The phone, much like its Chocolate phone cousin, is marketed towards luxury users and includes a leather case, pre-loaded content and ring tones. LG's phone could even beat Apple's iPhone to market.

The tri-band 12mm thin phone normally has glowing touch-sensitive icons, but the icons disappear when the phone is not in use. A 2 megapixel camera on the back has an LED flash along with a Schneider-Kreuznach lens. Like other Korean phones, the Prada phone can play back MP3/ACC/WMA music along with MPEG4/H.264 video clips. Extra content can be loaded through a MicroSD slot.

The KE850 is actually smaller than the iPhone and features a user interface built on top of Adobe's Macromedia Flash technology. Its extra wide LCD screen maximizes visual impact, allowing the user to benefit from several key features of the phone. Like the iPhone, it also includes 2 megapixel camera featuring Schneider-Kreuznach lens, and video player and document viewer capacity.

This ultra thin (just 12 mm, merely 0.4 mm more than the iPhone), sleek and simplistic phone has tri-band (900/1800/1900) and EDGE capabilities and can playback music files in MP3, ACC, ACC+, WMA, RA as well as MPEG4 video files.

The KE850 supports Bluetooth 2.0 and USB 2.0 connectivity and includes a Micro SD memory slot, which allows user to increase memory capacity for images, music and film clips.

The PRADA phone by LG will go on sale in late February for $US780 at mobile phone dealers and Prada stores in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, and comes to Asian countries, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, in March.

The company has no plans for US release, said Judy Pae, a spokeswoman for the company in Seoul. However, the Korean version of the KE850 phone is scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2007.

LG's choice of marketing a phone with a Prada name makes sense for fashion conscious consumers in Asia. Prada is known for making fashionable and high-end accessories like handbags and sunglasses.