LG Prada KE850 review

LG Prada KE850 Review

Reviewed by: Andrew Lim

Reviewed on: 9 March 2007

The 2-megapixel camera has an LED photo light and shoots both still pictures and video. Using the large colour touchscreen as a viewfinder works well enough.

The touchscreen interface works surprisingly well, even though there's no stylus

Unusually, there's a document viewer that supports Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Acrobat files. Documents are reformatted to fit the width of the screen, so there's no need to scroll sideways to read the text. It works, but the small screen means you won't be using it to read War and Peace on the train.

There's an expandable microSD slot for storing all your favourite music and videos, and you get a 256MB card with the phone. Plug the Prada into your computer via a USB cable and you can use it as a mass-storage device, which is useful for transferring files around. You can also connect it to other devices using Bluetooth.

A noteworthy but rather gimmicky feature is the world clock, which reminds us of Google Earth, in as much as it displays a globe you can then zoom in on. It looks great on the Prada's screen.

Finally, for such a large-screened handset, you might assume that the LG Prada would be great for browsing the Web, but it's hindered by two factors. The first is that the browser isn't very good -- text pops up in the wrong position and images can look squashed. The other issue is that there's no 3G or Wi-Fi connectivity, so it takes a while for pages to download.

Performance
Our battery lasted for two days before we needed to recharge it. The large screen drained a lot of power when the brightness was set to full, so once you've shown off your new purchase to your friends you'll want to turn this down.

The 2-megapixel camera is a little lacklustre and seems dated next to other phones that feature 3-megapixel cameras, such as the Nokia N73 or the Sony Ericsson K800i. Using the large touchscreen as a viewfinder is great, but the shots from our review model came out quite blurry.

There's a 2-megapixel camera on the back with an LED photo light

Audio quality during calls was good and we didn't notice any muffling or distortions during calls. The sound quality on the music player was also good and sounded okay over the loud speaker, but it's not loud enough to replace a hi-fi system.

Conclusion
Whether this handset is for you comes down to how you use your phone. Heavy texters will struggle with the touchscreen and would be better off with LG's own Shine or Motorola's Krzr.

But for those that are mostly after a flash mobile to impress their friends, the Prada KE850 is ideal. It may not be perfect in every department, but its cutting-edge looks make up for the deficiencies.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Kate Macefield