LG KG800 "Chocolate" Phone

Discontinued
24th March 2006 (updated 30th April 2006)

LG have announced a European version of their popular Korean "chocolate" handset - a smooth looking slider based on a popular Korean CDMA handset which has sold 300,000 units in Korea alone since its launch last November.

The LG KG800 weighs just 83 grams, and has a 176x220 pixel display, Bluetooth, 128Mb of internal memory, a 1.3 megapixel camera plus an MP3 player.

The "chocolate" phone gets its name because of its most popular colour, but another neat trick is that there are "hidden" touch-sensitive that light up only under certain circumstances. This gives the LG KG800 a very distinctive and sleek look when closed, which certainly makes the KG800 look different from anything else on the market.

LG brought the KG800 to market within a month of the original announcement, because the company are very keen to produce distinctive products in Europe, but reportedly they are also anxious to get the KG800 out before someone else copies it. At launch, the KG800 is available through the Carphone Warehouse/Phone House and subsidiaries in Europe, and there are rumours of a US version too.

We think the "copying" concern is ironic, since the LG S5200 is one of the most derivative handsets that we've ever seen, and even devices such as the rather nice LG P7200 are clearly "inspired" by other handsets. Still, we must admit that the LG KG800 "Chocolate" is ceratinly different from other sliders, and the expected feature set, smooth looks and light weight will potentially give it a bit of a unique selling proposition. LG's claim that the "chocolate" phone has a 7% market share in Korea, so presumably it must be pretty good.

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