Designer Prada Phone out next month

The Prada Phone uses a touch-screen interface, is made by Korea's LG and is sure to turn heads when it launches in February.

Good-looking mobile phones seem to be coming out thick and fast these days, the latest being the fruit of Korean firm LG's labours with Italian fashion house Prada.

The Prada Phone by LG, to accord it its full name, is also known as the KE850 and is yet another button-free touch-screen handset. The LG announcement says that the Prada Phone was the result of design collaboration, with the fashionistas working on both the outside of the phone and the look of the software running on it. Prada also picked the ringtones and some unspecified pre-loaded content.

Beneath the surface, the new phone is a tri-band (900/1800/1800MHz) GSM model that supports the EDGE fast data standard. It has a 2-megapixel camera, the usual range of media players, MS Office viewers, Bluetooth and a microSD card slot.

Given that touch-screen interface, comparisons with Apple's iPhone are inevitable. The main physical differences are size - the Prada Phone is slightly smaller - and memory - Apple's device has a hard drive, whereas LG's phone will rely on memory cards. More importantly perhaps, pricing is similar, as the Prada Phone will cost around £400 when it hits the shops in the UK next month. J.Mark Lytle