LG PRADA II (LG KF900) Preview

Discontinued
13th October 2008

The original LG PRADA phone (the KE850) was a very compact touchscreen phone announced at roughly the same time as the original iPhone. During the time it has been on sale, the KE850 has sold over a million units, which is not bad for what many consider to be just a fashion phone.

Time does not stand still, and LG have announced a follow-up, the LG KF900 which we may as well call the LG PRADA II or "new PRADA". And although it looks very similar to the original PRADA, the PRADA II is a very much more sophisticated handset.

One possibly controversial feature is likely to be the slide-out QWERTY keyboard - the original PRADA phone didn't have one, and it didn't need one as it filled its own market niche. But LG have produced several touchscreen phones since the PRADA, and surprisingly the KF900 / PRADA II is their only touchscreen device with such a keyboard in the range. So, we can tell straight away that the KF900 isn't aimed at quite the same market as the old KE850.

The LG KF900 also adds a 5 megapixel camera with a Schneider-Kreuznach lens (presumably with autofocus and a flash, but not confirmed), HSDPA (3.5G) support and WiFi. The original PRADA only had a 2 megapixel camera and was strictly GSM-only, so you can see that this is a huge technological step forward.

The display is still a 240 x 400 pixel touch-sensitive panel, and the LG KF900 can play back a variety of media types including MP3, WMA, AAC, MPEG4, H.263 and H.264 files.

LG haven't specified the dimensions or battery life of the PRADA II phone, but we think that it has a footprint of around 103 x 54mm. It will be significantly heavier than the original phone which weighed just 85 grams.

LG say that the "starting price" for the KF900 is €600 (around £500), which is quite expensive. It will be much cheaper with a contract, and in any case LG tend to over-estimate the street price of their phones. It should be available in the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands sometime during the fourth quarter of 2008.. just in time for Christmas.