LG KF900 Prada review

The new LG KF900 Prada may seem like the missing link between the techie high end and exclusive fashionware. But will HSDPA, Wi-Fi, QWERTY and DivX ring the right bell with the target audience

Key features:

• 3-inch 262K-color capacitive touchscreen display of WQVGA resolution
• Comfortable QWERTY keyboard
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash
• D1 (720x480) resolution video recording at 30fps
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• Dual band 3G with HSDPA support
• Wi-Fi
• Responsive Flash-based interface with multi-touch support
• Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP and USB v2.0
• Stylish and generous retail package
• microSD memory card slot (verified to work with 16GB cards)
• FM radio with RDS
• Accelerometer sensor for screen auto rotate
• TV-out
• Office document viewer
• DivX video support
• Fashion-related content preloaded

Main disadvantages:

• Two-year-old design
• The large waistline doesn't match the fashionable image (but is OK for a QWERTY messenger)
• Plastic build
• No GPS (LG Renoir has it)
• No XviD video support (LG Renoir has it)
• Multi-touch has rather limited use
• No Flash support in the web browser
• Video recording is a letdown
• High cost-to-features ratio (but OK for a premium fashion handset)

Retail package

The LG KF900 Prada comes in an all-black leather cube of a box that's at least as stylish as the phone tries to be. On top is the handset and with all the accessories underneath, each in its own small package. That arrangement we saw in the first Prada and the Secret later on.

There's plenty of stuff inside the big box so prepare for a long unpacking. Boy, it feels like Christmas.

Let's start with the essentials. There is a charger, USB-cable, cleaning cloth, CD with software and a manual. The supplied hard leather case is the same as the one that came with the original Prada, of duly increased size of course.

The new Prada entourage also includes a stereo headset with a rather chunky remote, attachment clip and a 3.5 mm jack adapter, so you're not stuck with the Prada branded earphonesThe new Prada phone comes along with 1GB microSD card. The 256MB card that came with the original Prada seems so helplessly dated but we're not sure 1 GB quite cuts it at the top of the line either. Anyway, cards of greater capacity are perfectly compatible. The KF900 handled a 16GB microSD card just fine.