LG KE850 Prada

Not that I'm bragging now, (as if) but part of my job involves me interacting and entertaining celebrities, in fact pandering to their every whim. To have that keep up with the Jones' status they issued me with the LG Prada phone, a new ultra groovy slim line phone. I was a little reluctant to engage in the use of this phone, the combination of this dainty phone and my thumping fingers does not bode well for the survival of this phone. Dainty though this phone may look, it's far from a soft touch as I discovered having launched it across the floor on numerous occasions; but as usual I'm ahead of myself let's get down to the phone.

"It's a Prada phone, it's a Prada Phone
It's a Prada Phone, It's a Prada Phone
Prada, Prada, PRADA, PRAAAADAAAAAR!"

So I'm not good with song writing, but something about this phone does make you want to sing. The phone is about the size of most modern mobiles but only about a centimetre thick. It's nice and shiny, so much so that it's kind of flawed because fingerprints can be oh sooooo annoying.

Upon switching the phone on the word PRADA appears on the screen, shortly followed by an incredibly annoying shrieking noise and a circle of light surrounding the word PRADA. I already love it, it's like a hark back to 80's Italian horror movies, so right but at the same time so incredibly wrong.

So with my LIVE Prada phone I enter the world of touch sensitive screens, four little buttons on the bottom section of the screen allow you to make basic selections. The first is menu, the second phone (for dialling direct numbers), third up is text messaging, and finally your contacts. Getting used to pushing the screen can be annoying because at first you go over into the next option, but after 20 or 30 goes you get more precise. You finally start getting the options you want.

I won't lie and tell you that the PRADA phone is laden with features, this is no 3G phone however it does have wap access, MP3 player, alarm clock, calculator, world clock, unit converter, calendar, memo pad, camera, camcorder, voice recorder, FM radio and games; as well of course as standard phone facilities. These are all fairly standard things for mobiles nowadays so I won't bore you with the finer details. The big deal here is that everything takes place on screen and that realistically other than that, and general sex appeal you're looking at nothing different from 100 other phones on the street.

With the Prada phone everything is new; it's like having your very first mobile again and being unsure how it all works. At first the phone can be more annoying than anything else, a text message takes so long that you more often than not (at first) wished you had not bothered. And this is an issue that those with little patience will never get over; I can imagine many of these phones returning to retailers because their new owners can't get their head round it.
Even making calls to automated lines (especially when setting up your phone for the first time) creates its own dilemmas. Once you dial the onscreen keypad disappears and it took me ages trying to figure out how to get it back, how frustrating it was making that set up call that activated everything on the phone, and I could not even figure out through the manuals how to bring the keypad back up. So for those of you experiencing the same push the bottom button on the left hand side of the phone.

The phone has other initial flaws, firstly in the MP3 player; there simply are not enough settings. You can't alter the tone or bass, and worse still I can only figure out how to get it to work with the onboard memory. This needs so elaboration I guess; like most mobiles that have an MP3 player they run off either built in memory or external memory in this case a mini SD (which you can buy up to 1GB cards, but comes with a 256mb card). The Prada goes out of its way to put an almost IPOD looking close screen on the phone to play the MP3's on, however anything i record on the SD card will only play through the sounds menu and not through the MP3 option (which is much simpler to activate, by pushing a button on the right hand side of the phone). So basically I'm in a situation that each time I want to play MP3's I need to push menu, go to the media option, push my stuff, push sounds, select the SD card option then press play. More annoying still is that you always have to start from the same place using this option. Using the MP3 option with tracks stored on the phone itself is far preferable, but you'll be lucky to get 3 tracks on your phone which not only illuminates the point, but makes it impossible to store additional stuff on the phone.
On the plus side the phone comes with good quality headphones, which have a sort of mini-remote that allows you to play, skip back or forward, stop, or raise and lower the volume. The volume is far louder than my Sony Ericsson W800i phone, and obviously the added remote is a real monus.

Another flawed issued is the 2.0 mega pixel camera, which despite boasting the Schneider Kreuznach name could be a lot better, while other phones have moved up to 3.0 or even 5.0 mega pixels, the Prada phone stays in the past. And the zoom option is almost a non entity, looking the same pretty much after zoom as it did before. That being said the picture quality is as good as it possibly could be for this standard.

Like most phones the Prada phone comes with connection cables to link it directly to your PC, to allow you to back up your information, and even burn tracks from CD to your phone, as well as programs and games (if you can find any). The set up of this was straight forward quite literally plug and play unless you want more precise options, and a simply phone to PC set up in my book is always appreciated as on many occasions I have found that not all the options work.

If you like games you won't like the Prada phone, the 4 built in games are very basic almost like the ZX81 (for those over 30) equivalent of a mobile game. The sounds that accompany the game are likely to get you murdered if on a bus or train, and unfortunately they trigger off before you get chance to silence them, it's that old finger nails down the blackboard approach to gaming. Having looked really hard I have been unable to find any other games to go onto the phone, this is quite sad. The included games are Halloween Fever - A kind of Tetris style hybrid game. Photo Puzzle - which mixes up a photo and gets you to try and put the picture back together again. Virus - A blast the blob games that's instructions need much to be desired. And finally Pipe - A favourite on many phones where you have to connect some pipework to avoid flooding.

The Radio allows you to have up to 9 programmable radio stations, and it easily allows you to search for new stations when travelling to new areas. You can even set the radio up to give you traffic alerts when they come through, ideal for train passengers unsure if they will be delayed on connecting trains. Coverage on the radio is even quite good in parts of the London underground system, which I must add my W800i was awful in the same locations.

When using WAP access I find that many options are completely disabled to Prada users, and typically enough it's the options that you would want to use rather than the ones you would not.

Taking all the negatives into account the LG Prada phone is pretty good, initially the battery life seems flawed, but its only because you're playing with it so much. I can go roughly 5 days between charges now. The phone itself is by far (with exception of the I-Phone I guess) the hottest phone on the market. It's strong and resilient and draws attention each time you use it. And despite all this unlike other "tend" phones you don't see this everywhere, I think the new technology puts people off.

Voice calls are very clear, but apparently I don't sound anything like me to listeners on the other end, which may or may not have its bonuses. At times the conversations from your end of the phone sound so clear that it's almost as if you are in the same room as the person you're talking too.

Due to the phones screen technology it comes complete with a leather protective case to stop the screen getting damaged. Take my advice and use this, while I have yet to incur any scratches on my screen, I can imagine that when I do from a looks point of view it will ruin the appeal of the phone. And go from looking absolutely amazing, to a bit of knackered old tat.

The Prada phone comes on both Pay As You Go, or on Contract, on contract its free with most networks, but on Pay As You Go the cheapest route seems to be with Virgin, but don't expect much change from £300 if any at all.

From dreading the phone I love it, and it would be just perfect if it had proper MP3 functionality. All the other issues just disappear as you get used to it.