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LG Prada KE850 is the offspring from an impeccable union between LG and uber-design house Prada. This touchscreen fashion phone is a very attractive and glamorous creation meant to carve a niche for itself with its innovative slick interface. On second look, it’s somehow identical to the LG Shine KE970 in terms of specs and the glossy interface. However, the large color touchscreen design also looks a tad like the highly anticipated Apple iPhone.

The luxuriously designed Prada phone by LG is solidly built and it measures only 12mm thick and weighs 85 grams, thus, the phone fits in your hand well and it’s easy to slide in the users pocket. Just like Shine, LG Prada KE850 is a fingerprint magnet too. However, I find it very easy to clean off the grime and fingerprints caused. Prada phone runs on a Macromedia Flash user interface and like any LCD screen, it’s terribly difficult to see the screen in the bright sunlight. When the phone is switched on, an intense chorus sounds, a soft gradient lights up the screen and the Prada logo appears on the black LCD screen. What a fantastic feeling seeing the big name on the phone.

The main attraction of the LG Prada phone is undeniably its slick touch display. You will probably need to spend some time on tapping the navigation using your finger as the Prada phone doesn’t come with a stylus. Therefore, dialing and texting can be a little challenging for users with sausage fingers, but when you do get the hang of it, your fingers fly. The touchscreen functionality is surprisingly very responsive and it works far better than I would have imagined, but it won’t work if you use it with your gloves on. However, LG Prada KE850 is somehow blemished by its hardware buttons. It isn’t completely buttonless, there are a few buttons including Dial, End, Cancel keys on the front, volume controls on the left, and camera and key lock button on the right.

Besides, this Prada branded mobile also has a 2MP built-in camera complete with Schneider Kreuznach lens, LED flash and zoom, therefore, you can expect high quality imaging and videoing capabilities. You can play MPEG4, H263 & H264 videos in full-screen mode on the beautiful 3-inch LCD TFT screen. For music lovers, the built-in FM radio and MP3 player sound great with plenty of bass but you can’t minimise it and multitask.

Nevertheless, it is a pleasant surprise that LG Prada KE850 also comes with a document reader which supports popular document formats including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat and Text files. I enjoy reading ebooks on the Prada phone as it looks good on the high-resolution screen. The phone comes with 8MB of built-in memory and with an expandable MicroSD™ memory option up to 2GB. However, the Prada phone lacks 3G - a familiar disappointment among recent touchscreen phones.

LG Prada KE850 isn’t just a pretty logo, it is a capable feature phone with a luxury-brand appeal. LG has successfully turned the phone into a triumph, even though it isn’t a smartphone and might lack the almighty iPhone’s specs, it’s definitely a great alternative to the iPhone. If you prefer the Prada label to Apple, and don’t mind paying extra for some style and fashion, LG Prada KE850 isn’t a bad choice at all. Who says the Devil wears Prada?

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In recent times, I’ve begun to prefer Sony Ericsson phones over Nokia ones, even though I used to like Nokia phones in the past. However, that was before Nokia started pumping out symbian phone after symbian phone after symbian phone, all of which were extremely slow and laggy. While they were indeed powerful, I still find it quite pointless, which is why I prefer Sony Ericsson phones now, and for the sake of this review, the Sony Ericsson K618 specifically.

It’s once again an extremely solid phone by SE and the OS is about the same as the other phones that were released around the same time as it was, back in August 2006. While it’s been almost a year since the phone was released, it’s far from being too old. The phone has all the typical functions that you’d come to expect from a SE phone: bluetooth, 2MP camera (which unfortunately isn’t very good, without auto focus or macro mode), support for M2 memory cards, etc. It also weighs about the same as standard SE phones, and has roughly the same dimensions: 102 x 45.2 x 16.9 mm, 89g. Function wise, it’s pretty much the same as many other SE phones.

However, there are a few things that really stand out. First of all, it’s design is pretty unique. Sony Ericsson has once again been able to produce an extremely good looking phone that will definitely capture the attention of anyone who sees it for the first time. It has a really unique d-pad as well, with a backlight that looks really good. One more thing that stands out really clearly are the speakers, they are extremely loud, and this might as well be a walkman phone. There are 3 speakers visible on the back, and they aren’t just for show. The phone can reach amazingly high volumes, which is a big plus, as many phones nowadays have extremely poor speakers that can’t really be used for listening to music.

On the whole, this is once again an extremely well thought out phone, with a unique design, improved speakers and delivering the same type of ease of use and functionality that one would come to expect from any Sony Ericsson phone, the Sony Ericsson K618 is a worthy addition to the entire K series, as well as SE phone collection.

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Sony Ericsson W880i is the slimmest Walkman phone ever at just 9.4mm thick - the depth of a CD case - and yet it promises to outperform previous Walkman phones. It’s that thin and light you don’t even know it’s in your pocket. Besides its thin form factor, the brushed metal face resists fingerprints, and its soft-touch rubbery backing also provides firm grip - it feels excellent to hold. The Sony Ericsson W880i comes in a beautifully designed casing with a choice of two colors - black or silver.

Sony Ericsson has crammed the W850i’s highlights into its thin frame. The industrial steel-clad W880i has an ultra-crisp 1.8in QVGA screen, a 2MP camera, a 1GB M2 memory stick, and it’ll do 3G browsing and email. The menu interface is intuitively animated and colorful; every feature on the phone shows thoughtfulness in their design.

Thank God, Sony Ericsson W880i uses a 5-way scroll key rather than the irritating joystick used on some of its other phones. The keypad is designed exactly like three big i’s, if you notice. Text addicts may complain about the small and fiddly keypad, but I decided to overlook it. As a matter of fact, the keys, although small to grapple with for fast texting, are very well spaced out and are very responsive; they are easy to operate after a couple of days. The keypad takes a bit of getting used to but it’s still a class act. Perhaps it’s time to grow your nails out?

Besides the primary 2MP camera behind the LCD display, Sony Ericsson W880i also comes with a second lens just beside the earpiece for video calls. My biggest gripe with the W880i is probably its camera. It’s indeed an extremely good camera but it misses a flash and an autofocus. Again, I decided to overlook it as the emphasis in W880i is on music. I can always opt for a digital camera if I want to take a high quality camera, furthermore, who takes pictures at night in a dark environment with their phone anyway?

The built-in speaker is very tinny, but plug in the good quality headphones included and you wouldn’t really notice the difference from a normal mp3 player. Like W850i, the W880i also comes with the TrackID feature that will provide the user with the name of the song, artist and album from a few seconds recording. It’s expected that the Sony Ericsson W880i doesn’t come with an FM radio, who needs an FM radio while you don’t even have time for the 1,000 tracks stored on the supplied 1GB memory card anyway? Yet it may be a disappointment for DRM lovers, as the W880i doesn’t support DRM tracks.

Overall, Sony Ericsson W880i is a stylish music phone that has everything in a combo device, backed by its easy-to-use Walkman 2.0 software, it is destined to be the best iPod Nano alternative around.

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Nokia N95 is a smartphone that is part of the Nokia Nseries line. Some of the features that are included with the Nokia N95 include the adoption of S60 third edition platform, along with the feature pack 1, running on the Symbian operating system. The screen is 2.6 inches in size and provides a 240 x 320 pixel screen resolution on a 16 million color TFT display.

This smartphone uses a two-way slider mechanism that allows access to alphanumeric keypad when you slide it up (open) and exposes the media playback controls when you slide it down (close). The dedicated media playback controls are a nice touch, but they are hard to press at times. Besides, the front flap of Nokia N95 just doesn’t feel like it’s securely locked into place and it somehow can easily slide open the phone when you put it into your pocket.

The Nokia N95 comes with an integrated Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation system, which is found below the 0 key on the keypad. This new GPS feature displays the maps in clear detail on the 2.6-inch colour screen and it supports maps for more than a hundred countries. Maps can be downloaded over the air through a carrier data packet network or through the built-in Wi-Fi system. You can also download maps through a PC using the MapLoader program. In addition, you can also access city guides and voice navigation for a one-time fee. This advanced feature will undeniably assist users who are always on the go to find their desired location.

One of the most notable features for the Nokia N95 is the built-in 5 megapixel digital camera that comes along with Carl Zeiss Optics lens. This includes digital zoom, autofocus and flash option. You can use it to take awesome pictures and record videos at near DVD quality! You can even one-click upload the pictures to Flickr. There’s also a second camera, the front CIF camera, for face-to-face video conference calls. Because of this feature, Nokia N95 was awarded the “Best Mobile Imaging Device in Europe 2007″. However, the camera sometimes seems to load very slowly. Another draw back is that it only can record videos for about 3 minutes, so it definitely won’t replace your regular video cam.

Nokia N95 also comes with a stereo FM radio, visual radio and a full fledged music player that supports WMA, RealAudio, SP-Midi, MP3, M4A, AMR, AAC+, eACC+, and True Tones. Users can use the music playing features in Landscape mode when you slide open the phone, but you may find it annoying as it doesn’t switch back to portrait mode automatically when you slide close the phone. You can use the standard 3.5mm jack, which is found on the left side of the phone and connect your standard headphones to listen to the music. Alternatively, the built-in stereo speakers let you forgo headphones and listen to your music directly through your phone. Both your video and music can be output to a TV or any similar device through a composite cable for a great photo and video viewing experience on a big screen.

A 3G capability is unarguably the very essence of a smartphone, and Nokia N95 offers 3.5G high speed wireless Internet connectivity. However, U.S. users may find it disappointing as it doesn’t work on the U.S. 3G networks nor HSDPA bands. To overcome this, U.S. users may consider unlocking it for use with Cingular and T-Mobile SIM cards through Nokia’s flagship stores. Nonetheless, there’s also a built-in Wi-Fi capability that lets you access the Internet through 802.11 b/g wireless networks. You can also connect to the net through EDGE. With Nokia’s promising web browser, it can display complete and full web pages, unlike other phones that only show simplified web pages, which is why I always prefer Nokia’s web browser. Best of all, you can view the web pages in landscape or portrait mode, your choice!

Talking about the size, Nokia N95 is sort of bulky, but it is compact when compared to other flip phones. However, it weighs only 120 gram which is unbelievable considering all the built-in technology and capabilities. One big disappointment is that it has short battery life.

All in all, Nokia N95 is a superb all-in-one smartphone with total combination of video, camera, map locator, WIFI capability and the sliding capability. No other phone, as of yet, has all these same capabilities combined in one neatly compact package. I really like the phone and it would be a perfect smartphone to me if it’s a touch screen. Overall, this phone is a great buy.

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Motorola ROKR E6 / E690 is a touchscreen PDA phone that strikes a balance between mobile entertainment and business functionality, and being only 14.5mm in thickness and boasting a 2.4″ TFT TouchWindow screen, MOTOROKR E6 knows that out of all the PDAs available he’s the one turning heads.

Motorola has decided to use the Linux-based operating system on Motorola ROKR E6, meaning that you don’t get to see that poor and inferior Motorola’s own User Interface anymore. Splendid. However, there are very few and limited Linux-compatible applications on the market, unless you create your own applications. Business types will be excited with Microsoft office applications available on the almighty E6, allowing you to handle most office document formats like Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and PDF files. The phone also comes with email, handwriting recognition and business card scanning functions. However, the handwriting recognition feature takes some time to get used to, unlike the ones used by Pocket PCs.

On the multimedia side of things, the new Motorola ROKR E6 has a great list of multimedia features, there’s a 2.0 megapixel camera, MP3 player with dedicated music keys, FM Radio and SD/MMC card memory slot. What struck me the most is the high-resolution 2.0 megapixel camera with macro view, 8x zoom and Flash can take great pictures and it can also be used as a webcam for the PC or laptop. The picture quality looks just like it’s taken on a 3.2 megapixel camera phone like N93i. With support for major compressed audio formats like MP3, WMA and WAV, the phone enables users to enjoy their music through a 3.5mm headphone jack, or the alternative wireless Bluetooth stereo headphones will do the job. Built-in FM radio is a plus for DJ lovers. The sound quality is fairly good. Storage wise, E6 comes with 8MB of internal memory, but for heavy users, SD or MMC memory cards of up to 2GB are supported.

Unfortunately, the thin and slick MOTOROKR E6 is not a perfect PDA phone. E6 seems to forget its basic function - making a call. You need to press multiple buttons to make a call, so heavy users should really think twice when considering the phone. Besides that, the Stylus requires extra effort to be pulled out and the preloaded DRM results in a slow response to Stylus inputs. And, for those who depend a lot on the Alarm, you will need to be extra careful when the alarm goes off, you’ll need to touch correctly either on Dismiss or Snooze, otherwise you will have hard time finding buttons to stop the alarm if you touch somewhere else on the screen. *Tips* If you can’t stop the alarm, just turn off the phone and turn it on again. =)

All in all, Motorola ROKR E6 is a uniquely designed touchscreen entertainment PDA phone with decent performance. Although the phone is neither 3G nor Wi-Fi capable, it is by far the best of its kind and undisputedly an entry level to PDA phones.

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