LG Prada II fashionista phone

LG bundles the phone with a 1GB Micro SD card which adds much-needed storage capacity to the phone’s 60MB of on-board 60MB user memory. Cards of up to 8GB can be handled by the phone’s side-mounted memory card slot.

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The music player sports a no-frills UI, though its audio performance can be very pleasing. Ditto the FM radio. The player’s serviceable without being particularly flashy or innovative. The Prada-branded headset plugs into a regulation LG multi-connector on top of the phone. But it's headset's one of LG’s higher-end two-part sets, with a 3.5mm socket on remote control module.

The usual mobile phone organiser and email tools are supplied, along with Picsel for opening Word, Excel, PDF, JPEG and text files. Three motion-controlled or touch-operated games are pre-loaded too, including touch golf.

More usefully, you also get a rather nifty leather case for the handset, and a screen cloth to keep the phone looking suitably smudge-free - all part of the Prada luxury package.

Voice-call quality is excellent, and we found setting up and using Wi-Fi to be trouble free. Battery performance was reasonable too. LG quotes standby figures of up to 400 hours, and talktime of up to three hours in optimum conditions, although how often you hit features such as Wi-Fi and video playback will knock this back. We managed 2-3 days between charges with typical usage.

Verdict

The Prada II maintain all the style of the original but packs in a more refined touchscreen user interface, a very usable slide-out keyboard, Wi-Fi and HSDPA connectivity, and a 5Mp camera. It certainly has plenty of fashionista appeal, even if that black minimalist look doesn’t have quite the head-turning impact it once did. For the price, we'd have liked to have seen GPS included too, but then how hard is it to get lost on a catwalk? Yes, it's a nice phone, but behind the premium brand, it's an off-the-peg handset. ®

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