During the day on the Windows Phone 7 launch, Joe over at the official LG Blog was having a bad day.

That’s because he indadvertedly leaked details of LG’s hot new Optimus 7 line-up (which, by the way, are looking rather nice). Turns out as Joe explains, he failed to notice the timezone on the publish date was EDT not BST.

Woops. I’ve done it before myself.

Alas it was too late for Joe as the LG Optimus 7 news percolated across the internet.

I don’t actually think there was much damage done at all, given that the media was beside itself trying to track 10 different device launches as well as the WP7 announcements.

Joe from LG has posted a public confession with a brilliant GIF animation featuring a replay of his reaction to realising he’d got the timings incorrect. Do take a moment to visit and watch it!

You can see it here.

I wouldn’t worry Joe — excellent recovery!

What a difference a few years makes, eh? 2 years ago I was going nuts at the LG Renoir launch, dismayed by the built-in limitations of the phone’s proprietary operating system yet delighted at the phone’s brilliant specifications.

Sort out the operating system and all of a sudden, the devices get a lot more interesting.

I’m not surprised, of course, to see LG participating in the Windows Phone launch today — after all, the company has been very vocal about it’s support for the beast that is Microsoft.

LG is releasing two key devices under the Optimus range — the Optimus 7 and the Optmius 7Q (the major difference is the built-in QWERTY-keyboard and a slightly smaller screen).

I haven’t had ‘hands on’ with the Optimus but it’s looking good. I’m particularly keen to try out the integrated DNLA technology and ‘Play To’:

With Play To, the DLNA-based multimedia sharing technology available only on LG Optimus 7 devices, users will have the most user-friendly file-sharing experience. LG is leading the innovation of DLNA technology by offering easy and intuitive settings for accessing this feature.

Play To lets users share multimedia files with other digital devices from the picture, video or music Hubs without having to access other menus. Users will be able to display videos and photos captured on their LG Optimus 7 or LG Optimus 7Q on a TV or enjoy music on their phones through their favourite speakers without wires.

Here’s the 7Q:

Here’s a reminder of what it looks like:

Well. There could be some cash in it for you, if you did.

LG will is going to buy back 5 Chocolate handsets for US$ 10,000 each.

Not just any handset though. It has to bear one of the following serial numbers:

802KPAE821224
803KPBF578597
803KPXV578330
803KPVH578503
803KPJP923836

If you find one of these at the bottom of your old technology drawer, you should get in touch with LG immediately. Here are the details you need.

And in case you’re thinking of implementing a little bit of serial number creativity, LG have ways of checking, especially with the internal components…

Chris over at Engadget is reporting that the above pictured GW620 will — at some point — hit mobile operator shelves.

It’s rather exciting — this is LG’s first Android handset. Chris points out that the device looks to be very ‘bone-stock Android build’ at the moment — no mention of the whizzy S-Class LG interface. I don’t think that’s a bad thing though. I’ve always thoroughly admired the LG hardware but found the UIs ridiculous. I was encouraged by the launch of the S-Class whizzy interface but my basic issue is extensibility for the consumer.

I wonder which operators will swoop up the GW620? I’ve been hunting for an Android device with a decent QWERTY keyboard so I’ll definitely try the LG one out.

It’ll be available on pay as you go, and comes with a bluetooth headset, built-in speaker, 3G and video calling. And that’s all we appear to know right now.

“Pay as you go only”, you may gasp, “why?”

Well here’s my thinking. What perfect way to sell you a gizmo you’ll probably get bored of using within a few weeks, and notch up another SIM ‘subscriber’. Imagine being tied in to a 36 month contract on a watch? I couldn’t either really. It’ll also go down well with the kids – who, unless they have crazy parents with deep pockets, are usually on pay as you go these days.

The device will be available, according to Orange, ‘for a limited time period’ (there’s a pun in there somewhere), and is the first of at least three new ‘market leading’ devices they’re planning to announce before the end of the year.

Over to Tom Alexander, CEO of Orange UK, for the obligatory soundbite: “The Watch Phone is the must-have gadget of 2009. It’s handcrafted, exclusively limited, and will turn heads on the high street. Our ambition is to become the best loved communications brand in the UK, and the destination brand of choice for high-end mobile users in the market. To help us achieve this, we have secured some of the most original and innovative devices available.

“The Watch Phone is the first of these devices, all focused on bringing a 21st-century experience to our 21st century customers. Over time we also intend to match the power of these devices with bespoke multimedia packages, driving even more inspirational conversations and deeper connections for our customers.”

The last time we spoke on this very blog about mobile phones meeting watches was back in 2007 when Sony Ericsson and Fossil launched a Bluetooth watch. Seen many on the street? No nor have I – and to be honest you’d get some very funny looks talking into your wrist.

So how will the Orange/LG watch phone fair? Only time will tell. And on that note, I’ll leave you to watch the lovely demo video courtesy of Orange.

I popped by the Flirtomatic London offices today to meet with founder Mark Curtis and the team. I’ve long been a follower (and fan) of Flirtomatic (check out the MIR archive coverage) and particularly fascinated with how they’ve managed to build such a massive base of users via the mobile web.

Flirtomatic is, as you might have guessed, all about flirting — not necessarily dating in the traditional sense. Mark and his team are uber-smart. They’ve got the sign-up time down to approximately 45 seconds via mobile. So if you click on an advert or if you visit via an operator portal link, you’ll be able to become a member extremely quickly. This fastidious and razor-sharp focus on the sign-up process has helped them garner a massive, massive user-base.

Mark was telling me that when they started, they used to convert just over a third of sign-ups into active users (and by active, they mean ’sends a flirt message’, not just logging in). They’ve now got that ratio up to 70% – a simply phenomenal figure.

I spent a few hours with Mark discussing his take on mobile development. The resulting interview is fantastic food for thought. Firtomatic have built a solid foundation of decent, healthy and increasing revenue through mobile web. Why? Well, he explains in some detail on camera and makes some super observations.

If you’re after some highlights, try these snippets for size:

* They users bought 14,000 virtual engagement rings in 72 hours to celebrate the leap year back in 2008.
* Don’t write off credit cards as a method of payment. 10% of Flirtomatic’s revenue is derived from credit cards — details of which are input via the mobile browser!
* Vodafone UK’s ‘free data’ day on May 1st for PAYG users boosted sign-ups 13 times.
* iPhone users are by far the longest to validate (i.e. confirm) their accounts — in some cases it takes four days for a user to login to their email to validate their account.
* The N95 remains one of their most popular handsets by traffic.
* On average within 2 hours of signing up, males get roughly 4 flirtomatic messages from other users. Females get about 20!
* They money is in visibility (i.e. users paying to improve their rankings/ratings). That point is probably one of the most incisive takeaways.
* It’s not necessarily about apps. I think a lot of developers will be very interested to understand why Mark and his team simply haven’t bothered with mobile applications as yet.

We also did a walk-about of Flirtomatic’s Towers, indeed they’re now a proper tower since new additions have led them to expand on to a second floor. Mark did a quick introduction to the staff before we sat down and got talking.

Mark’s video(s) should be up shortly. If you’d like a reminder, we’ve got a nifty function that will update you by email every time we post. Subscribe here.

(That screencap above of Mark is from the video import.)

Yes? Good. Because that’s what T-Mobile UK have cooked up for your delectation. It’s the next in the series after the rather amazing T-Mobile ‘Dance’ at London’s Liverpool Street Station that saw hundreds of apparent commuters all of a sudden break into a series of co-ordinated dance moves. Brilliant advertisement, compelling viewing. If you haven’t seen it, take a few minutes and check it out here:

And here’s the Hey Jude one in Trafalgar Square:

The good looking girl who appears now and again, singing in tune, is popstar Pink.

I think.

I’ve been wondering all about this particular video after I kept seeing it playing on all the electronic screens around the London Underground/Tube. Know I know.

I’m pretty impressed at T-Mobile UK’s advertising geniuses. The first video, The Dance, definitely underpins the company’s ‘Life’s For Sharing’ message — and, whilst the ‘Hey June’ one does too (load of folk, all singing-along mostly out of tune), I think The Dance is going to remain their most compelling ad for some time.

Fluck me sideways.

From June 1, pay as you go and pay monthly consumer customers can talk, text and send picture messages from over 35 countries across Europe this summer for the same price as at home.

From May 15, calls from the UK to friends and family overseas from as little as 5 pence per minute.

Businesses also benefit from cost savings on roaming.

What a challenge to the industry. I’m really pleased to see this rather sweeping, surprising and exciting move from Vodafone:

So much so, I’m going to post the whole release:

Vodafone UK is abolishing roaming charges this summer and bringing in great value prices for international calls, making it easier for customers to phone home while abroad and make calls abroad from the UK. There are cost savings for business customers too.

From 1 June to the end of August, Vodafone Pay as you Go and Pay Monthly customers will be able to call, text and send picture messages to friends and family back home from over 35 countries knowing that it will cost exactly the same as if they were in the UK. For example, a customer on a plan with 600 minutes and unlimited texts who opts in to Vodafone Passport would use these minutes and texts when they are on holiday with no extra charges.

Existing Vodafone Passport customers automatically benefit from the three month promotion. From May 15, customers who don’t currently use Vodafone Passport can sign up for free by texting the word ‘Passport’ to 97888 if they pay monthly or to 2345 if they use Pay as you go , or they can visit vodafone.co.uk/roaming.

In addition, from May 15, Vodafone Pay as you go customers on the Simply tariff, will find that calls they make from the UK to friends and family overseas will be even better value. International calls will cost from as little as 5p per minute to both landlines and mobiles. Customers can opt in to the new Vodafone International call plan by calling 36888 or texting the word ‘international’ to 2345 from their handset, visiting vodafone.co.uk/international or speaking to an adviser in one of Vodafone’s 400 stores.

“These are two great value offers for our customers this summer. With our Vodafone Passport promotion you can sit on the beach with your phone switched on knowing you can take and make a call just as you would if you were in your back garden,” says Ian Shepherd consumer director for Vodafone UK. “Vodafone International is good news for the millions of UK pay as you go customers as they can now make calls to family and friends around the world from just 5p.”

Reducing the cost of roaming for businesses

Vodafone UK business customers on Anytime or Your Plan price plans will also benefit from the same three month Vodafone Passport promotion from June 1. Customers on these plans and already on Vodafone Passport will automatically qualify for the promotion. Non Vodafone Passport customers can opt in by calling their account manager or visiting www.vodafone.co.uk/businessroaming for further information.

And the countries included?

Countries included in the Vodafone Passport summer promotion: Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Canary Islands, Channel Islands, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroes, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Isle of Man, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madeira, Malta, Monaco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Vatican City, New Zealand, Australia.

More thoughts and analysis later!

Here’s a pic:

I was Palo Alto for a few meetings, one with a mobile titan (ID not public alas). The chap was running 30 minutes late (”Don’t worry, I’ll hit up* the Apple store”, I told him). I’d arrived in by the rather efficient ‘CalTrain’ early anyway so I strolled up University Avenue toward the Apple store.

I was having a look in the shop windows during the stroll and realised I was passing the Verizon Wireless store.

“Screw it,” I thought, “I’ve got some time, let’s go and have a look at Mr CDMA’s offerings.”

I arrived into the store and was immediately greeted by a lady with a clipboard. This is the way things work in America. At least, it’s been my experience with Sprint as well as Verizon.

(Conversations paraphrased from memory)

“How may I help you today?” the nice spritely shiny lady asked, clipboard and pen poised.

“Er I’m British,” I said. Best to get that off my chest.

She did a slow knowing nod.

British = Useless to Verizon. They either want to spend a good 20 minutes selling you a two-year credit agreement (and a handset) or get you out of the shop as quickly as possible with a prepay deal.

But if you’re foreign it’s a no-go. They don’t want your business. You need a US social security number to get started with them. This is fair enough — there are 303 million folk in the country, enough to be getting on with.

Even if you offer to prepay a 2-year contract in advance (e.g. $200 for a Storm on $80 a month is $2120. Offer them $3,000 up front and they’ll decline. Their system, I’m told, doesn’t ‘work that way’).

Anyway. I explained I was British and the lady put down her pen and let me pass.

Normally she’d have been ticking various boxes relating to what I was looking for. Then she’ll hand the resulting form to a sales chappy who, suitably briefed, will help me out.

I took a stroll about the place. I admired a few handsets. I glanced once or twice at the Storm, their handset du jour. Well, actually, their handset du year.

I had a look at the LG Versa.

“Can I help you, sir?”

I turned and found a helpful looking sales chap on my elbow.

“Er,” I said with continued embarrassment, “I’m sorry, I’m British, so… er…”

“Oh,” the chap said, eyes widening.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding, “It’s prepay or nothing, I know.”

I hung my head slightly as the chap nodded with me in sympathy.

With a tough of benevolence, he said I should ask him if I needed any help.

I thanked him.

“Alas, I’m a pariah,” I mumbled to myself, gazing over at the Samsung Omnia on the shelf. Windows Mobile, I know, but it thought it’d be worth a look. I went back to the Storm.

$199 on a 2-year contract.

I started selling it to myself.

“You have a duty to, you know, play about with these things,” I reasoned, calculating whether I really wanted to spunk something like $2,000 on ‘playing about’.

I only found out later that you could get a Blackberry Storm for $449 up-front on a month-to-month agreement. That, provided Verizon would have done a deal with an alien like me, would have bee interesting. I’d still have had quite a problem swallowing $449 unless I was aiming to use it as a primary device.

My key issue is that I’ve never actually used a Verizon handset for more than a day or so — and they’ve been rubbish prepay handsets. I’ve never really tried out the Verizon data network, for example. So I was warm.

But luckily for my bank balance, nobody tried to sell me a month-to-month Storm.

In fact, they’re not selling the Storm in Palo Alto. Although it’s on display, it’s not for sale. The sales team will do their best to avoid selling you one.

Is that a sweeping statement? Yes. Of course Verizon are selling Storms — by the bucketload by all accounts. Just not to me. And definitely not to the customer who came in after me.

I was pondering the possibility of a Windows Mobile handset when I heard a chap come into the shop. I glanced round as he approached me and the salesman who’d (sensibly?) given up on me.

“Hi,” he said, “I’m after a G-3 phone, the Blackberry Storm?”

“Right,” said the salesperson, “Well…”

“This is it here, is it?” the buyer said. He’d walked straight to it and was ready for the sale. He’d clearly seen it on television or been recommended it. The fact he got the ‘G-3′ (”3G”) bit wrong indicated an element of normob (”normal mobile user”) in his makeup. He knew what he wanted. He knew 3G, however you said it, was the way ahead. He was fondling the device and wanted to buy one.

“Er, you don’t want the Blackberry Storm,” said the salesman to the surprise of the buyer, “It’s buggy,” he continued.

“Buggy? Ah yeah..” said the buyer. He’d heard of that too and asked, “When will they bring out a software upgrade?”.

“Errrrr,” said the salesman, “Is it a touchscreen phone you’re looking for?” he said, beckoning the buyer to the other side of the store.

I missed a bit of their conversation — but I could make out the fact the salesman was trying to sell him some type of LG touchscreen.

The buyer did some quick evaluation before walking back to the Storm.

“Nah, tell me about the Storm?”

“It’s buggy, you don’t want that,” the salesman said.

“Right, but it works?” said the buyer. He clearly *just* wanted one. He was giving all the I-don’t-mind hints.

At that point I left the store.

I couldn’t handle it.

I was having a lot of trouble keeping my mouth shut and not slapping the salesman with a handy wet fish a few times.

As I left, the buyer was fondling the Storm clearly in I WILL BUY THIS PHONE mode. I think the salesman had relented at this point as I just caught, “Well, the touchscreen clicks when you press on it, the iPhone doesn’t have that,” as I walked out the door.

Well I never.

Palo Alto, spiritual home to Silicon Valley (and actual home to, amongst others, HP’s worldwide headquarters). By all means discourage the good normob people of Shitsville, Middle America, to avoid getting the Storm (they’ll only return it when they can’t figure out the keyboard). But in Palo Alto? When the chap strides in demanding a Storm? Give him one. Be pleased he’s aiming to swap from T-Mobile (he was) to Verizon instead of T-Mobile or, worse… the iPhone collective that is AT&T.

An interesting experience.

In the interests of fairness I am going to see if I can swim the myriad Verizon Wireless PR channels and get a hold of a Blackberry Storm to use for a month or so. I’ll keep you updated.

Meanwhile I encourage you to pop into your nearest Verizon store and ask for a Storm and report back your experiences. My experience today must surely have been an exception.

* “Hit up” — a fancy wanna-be-cool American way of saying “visit/talk to/connect with”.

Lucky Goldstar has pre-empted Mobile World Congress, just like many others already have and no doubt many more will this week by unveiling to the unsuspecting public a new handset they’ll be taking to Barcelona next week. It’s a mobile phone they’re calling the LG Arena or the LG-KM900, if you want to get all technical.

This new mobile was actually leaked on Friday, much to the perturbed people over at their PR company so we’ve subsequently learnt this week.

LG is touting this phone as having a ‘groundbreaking’ 3D user interface, which we can’t really see in the 2D images so we’re not entirely convinced at this point it is all that innovative. The proof, as they say, will be in the pudding or at the first hand experience of the device.

The LG Arena will be officially unveiled at Mobile World Congress, with all the accompanying delights of HSDPA, WIFI and A-GPS and the ability to even playback DivX video. Wahoo!

It appears from little we’ve been informed to date, it’s a touch screen based phone much like their Renoir. It’s been reported elsewhere the phone only has a 5megapixel camera, where all their latest ‘flagship’ models have 8MP and this supposedly falls into that aforementioned category. However, we’re sure they’ll spin this somehow, someway and somewhere to make ground on the issue.

We’ll all just have to wait and see what comes out of their press conference next week. Expect us though to bring you the full skinny, the complete low down, the full enchilada – everything you needed to know but were too afraid to ask about the Arena.

You know, proper email, proper instant messaging, extensible application layer, shit-shit-shit-HOT 8 megapixel camera, super music capabilities…

I’m hopeful, I really am, that at some point this year — EARLY this year — somebody from LG will formally announce a few handsets running Android.

There’s just something so depressing about holding a Renoir.

It’ll only do exactly what the boys in Korea specifically designed it to do. YES you can have a calendar. YES you can play music (in a specific order). YES you can take pictures with it’s smart image software.

But NO you can’t add a really neat Twitter application designed last week. NO you can’t add ShoZu to send your photos to the web quickly. NO you can’t check the tube times or programme your Sky+ feed to record your favourite shows right from your handset.

It’s so depressing.

But you never know.

Samsung are up for it. That’s what ‘the market’ says. They’re heading Android. At least with a toe-in-the-water handset or two. Motorola might surprise the planet by going heavily Android.

And even Nokia is rumoured to be working on the next generation E90 running Android.

* Ok that last sentence is made-up.

When I was in Val d’Isere the other week, it was, alas, mostly work-work-work.

I did manage to put on some skis and arse about on the green slopes — the real focus of my attentions was the technology I’d brought with me to field-test and the iPhone 3G users all over the place.

Val d’Isere is THE place to be seen with an iPhone it seems. I’ll write more on that later.

For the subject of today’s post is the LG X110 ultra light laptop. Currently retailing on Expansys for £349.99 including VAT (pre-order, it’s not available yet it seems), the machine is a delight to use. An absolute delight.

I’m used to ultra light or mini laptops being total rubbish. Usable, but total rubbish. The LG X110 is actually highly usable, very well made and rather powerful.

It’s got a 1.6Ghz processor. You never know what that means nowadays. So I’ll tell you the experience. It’s fast. It puts the Dell Mini Inspiron I’ve got from Vodafone to shame. You know when you run Internet Explorer on one of these minis, even on XP, the thing chugs along for a good 20 seconds before doing anything. Not with the X110. I began to think of it as an 800 quid laptop squeezed into a decent sized mini.

It’s built nicely. Like an 800 quid decent laptop. I don’t feel like I could snap it in half if I tried.

It’s got 1GB RAM plus there’s a whopping 160GB of hard disk space and it’s sporting Windows XP Home. This was super at taking half a gig of photos and uploading them to Flickr over the wifi connection in the hotel. Although that sounds like a fairly innocuous task, your average 300-quid mini laptop would seriously struggle with the memory demands.

I’ve not yet finished playing with the X110 so standby for more soon. If you’re thinking about buying one and you’ve got some questions, either email me or post here and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Those Korean electronics giants have now added a third massive megapixel monster to their range, seen in the Samsung S8300.

The new phone which comes along in the former of a slider is due out March, according to reports on daily mobile.

Their first outing the i8510, also known as INNOV8 in parts of the world, was the first ever shipping 8MP device in the UK.

The second phone was a full touch screen mobile, the Pixon also boasted to be the slimmest 8megapixel around. This measured up to being just 13.8mm thick and beat LG’s similar model by only 0.1mm.

Samsung’s S8300 knocks them all into touch, by coming in at paltry 12.8mm. No noise has really been made about this yet, although we’re expecting them too and loudly.

Other dazzling features of the model are its 2.8-inch AMOLED touchscreen, and support for HSDPA.

No word has been uttered yet if it’s Tri or Quad band, we’re assuming it’s the latter as the previous two incarnations were.

Nor has there been any word on WIFI or 3G either, but seeing as there’s mention of HSDPA we’re taking an educated guess here and assuming it’s onboard.

There’s mentioned of a duraluminum chassis, which is also good to hear due to its anti-scratch and anti-fingerprint abilities.

This leak must have thrown a large spanner into their surprise expected announcement at Mobile World Congress, seeing as nearly every possible angle has been photographed here and the news is now out.

News has reached us that LG and Phillips now have dual SIM mobile phones, both of which have been made public in the last day or so.

First up was the LG KS660 with iDNES.cz heralding in its arrival, which came to our attention initially via Engadget Mobile.

This dual SIM wonder is of a touch screen variety, with a 3-inch 400 x 230 WQVGA screen and a 5megapixel camera onboard.

It’s a Tri-band GSM mobile and has EDGE support, but is sadly lacking WIFI and also 3G functionality.

From the little information that’s currently about, we’ve gathered it’s due for release in China and Russia in February.

Next up, also coincidently for the Russian market is the Philips Xenium X710.

This came to us via iTech News Net and was first published on mobile-review, which lists its features as not being a touch screen handset for a change.

There’s even less information lying around on this phone, as all we can tell so far is that it has a 2.4-inch display, a 3megapixel camera and supports Tri-band GSM and EDGE. Also missing from its basic makeup is WIFI and 3G again.

There’s no news whether they’ll appear elsewhere in the world, and seeing as everyone’s shut down until the New Year there’s no chance of anyone telling us.

These phones now join the ranks of the other two dual SIM cards seen around today, with E-TEN’s Glofish DX900 and Samsungs D890.

With the Sammy offering being of touch screen in nature, same as the Glofish with both being Tri-band based.

Although the E-TEN model has WIFI, with one of the SIM sockets actually being Quad band but both are still lacking in the 3G.

With what appears to be every man and his dog putting out a Dual SIM phone these days, will we all be using one soon?

It seems to be a smart idea and saves carrying around a work phone and a personal one too, but who will purchase it?

We doubt very much the company of employment will, as they’ll want its own phone strictly for business purposes and will also want it to be seen in that way too.

Which means the cost of ownership and purchase will be down to the personal user. Where there are much better consumer handsets around today.

Also, we’re wondering how and what shop or a carrier will sell this to the customer or even how they will market it? That’s without taking into consideration the insurance and protection needed behind it.

As for one, there’s the companies information and property of the SIM being placed into another’s phone. This will obviously have its own risks attached by itself, besides having all of the company’s intelligence in possible emails and data open to security vulnerabilities.

We’re sure we’ve only just scratched the surface on this matter, there’s bound to be a lot more problems ensuring that it actually solves.

LG has brought 1930s cartoon gadgetry to life, with the invention of the LG 3G watch phone that will be shown off at CES next week.

It’s been touted as the world’s first 3G watch phone, not that we’ve seen many plain old watch phones around before.

Known solely as the LG-GD910, it has a 1.43-inch screen with a camera in the front to facilitate its video calling. Yes, that’s right, video calling too.

Besides having 3G on board, it’s also capable of HSDPA speeds to the tune of 7.2Mbps. If that wasn’t enough other features go along the lines of; voice dialling, built-in speech recognition, text to speech, Bluetooth, an MP3 player and a speaker.

All this whilst also being waterproof, what more could anyone want? On yes, it looks like it’s coming to Europe and Japan from LG’s Google translated webpage.

At the end of November we reported upon a Prada Bluetooth watch for use with the LG Prada phone. It was very limited in its features and ties to the actual mobile, which made us write “Only you can’t answer (calls) in true Dick Tracy fashion; when will technology catch up with a 1930s cartoon?”. How irony and technology catches up on itself.

Well, it looks like it’s here. The proof will be in the pudding though, we look forward to hearing all about it from CES or failing that Mobile World Congress in February.

See more from the LG Korean website, via Google’s translator here.

Until then, it looks good, it appears to be genuine and we just hope the future has finally arrived.

Next, flying cars.

As the year starts to draw to a close, we thought we’d look back at significant moments in the mobile world during 2008. Ponderings where you can sit down with your grand children one day and say ‘yes, I was there when it happened’, or if you’re too senile by then, they can tell you all about and you can call them liars.

Either way, the following is a recap and in no particular order of occurrence, or importance on what or how they happened in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight.

If there happens to be anything you think we’re missing or paid little or no attention to, please feel free to drop a comment in at the base of this.

The QWERTY keyboard based Smartphones saw a huge resurgence in 2008. With the ‘normal’ near PC layout design of the HTC Touch Pro, Xperia X1, HTC S740 all with their own worth and merits being fairly popular. Along with likes of the keyboard-moulded-around-handsets gaining ground with the BlackBerry Bold, Curve 8900, Nokia E71 and soon to be seen E63.

No one can ignore how well the touch screen phones have done, especially with the likes of the iPhone. Earlier on in the year we saw the 16GB version of the 2G arrive on the scene. Following on from that model the 3G version later on in 2008; although it must have irked some people that it came in so cheap as compared to the 2G version a year earlier. iRage must have been the name for that symptom surely?

HTC had a good year with their Touch Diamond being their best selling handset to date. Just to build on that success, they built the world’s first Google Android powered phone in the G1. Even more kudos has to go to them, for building Sony Ericsson’s first ever Windows Mobile phone with the Xperia X1. They certainly came out of their shell, after really only being known as makers of the SVP Orange handsets.

BlackBerry broke form with two phones in 2008. They launched their first flip mobile with the Pearl Flip 8220, which seemed to be overshadowed by their other imminent release. This was obviously the Storm, the joint venture with Vodafone and Verizon for a full touch screen handset – minus the customary keyboard that everyone associates with RIM devices. They really didn’t do anything by halves on that phone, did they?

2008 was supposed to herald in the next gen of wireless connectivity, when we really only heard some murmurings from a few companies. HTC did unveil the very first ever WiMAX mobile phone towards the end of the year, but only in Russia. Whilst others made a little noise over LTE, but not loud enough in our opinion – here’s hoping 2009 brings better news.

Facebook according to all reports had the largest jump in usage on social networking sites and on mobiles. Not only that, but for all intents and purposes it had its own mobile design for it on 3, by 3. The INQ 1 has only been with us for a while, but to all accounts it’s taken the network by storm and looks to be a success. More handsets in the INQ linage are due in 2009, with the rumour of a QWERTY keyboard/Smartphone version being on the horizon.

Application stores had a great success in 2008, all building on from the growth of the iTunes Apple store for the iPhone and iTouch devices. Google announced their own this year for their own OS based handsets, which we’re promised to see more of too. Their Android Market store has yet to gain the momentum of Apple’s, but there’s always hope for the future. BlackBerry also announced their own take on this, as did Palm with the Software Store. 2009 could be the year of the Widget, who knows?

The OS wars heated up, with Google’s Android being shown off at Mobile World Congress on a few Vanilla handsets and then later on arriving on the HTC/T-Mobile G1. Windows Mobile was launched on April Fool’s Day at the Comedy Store in London , and we’re still all waiting for the punch line. This has been plagued with foibles and troubles since turning up, so much so that their own product manager uses cooked ROMs from the xda-developers site to correct all its faults.

Then there was the Nokia £209million acquisition of Symbian, with the promise to turn that platform into an open source OS. Clearly a gut reaction to Google’s Android, although a risky one at that. Hopefully this will open up the mobile phone market to great potential in much richer features, greater competition amongst them all to improve the platforms that we have around today, whilst keeping the costs low for phones.

Music content on mobiles came in to play in 2008. The PlayNow content for Sony Ericsson had a huge influx of tracks earlier on in the year, which must have boosted the Walkman mobile sales in some shape or form. Nokia stepped on to the dance floor with Sony BMG offering up their catalogue, for the Nokia Music Store. New handsets also came out from them with the offer of free unlimited music for a year, on their ‘Comes With Music’ brand. This must have upset the Apple cart with their iTunes.

The netbooks all had a good year too. DELL, MSI, Lenovo, Acer, Samsung and HP all jumped on the Asus bandwagon during 2008. When they became of interest to us is when they started to have imbedded 3G functionality and the likes of Orange bundling in imbedded SIM cards and offering up contracts for the devices – making them a truly mobile computing device.

Camera phones reached the lofty heights of 8 megapixels this year, or 8.1 if you really want to be pedantic and stand out, Sony Ericsson. Samsung and LG were also at the party, in both regular models and touch screen varieties. Notably absent from the bash were Nokia, who seemed happy with their 5MP offerings. Although a possible leaked roadmap shows off they are still planning an 8MP handset.

In closing, we’re just happy that CERN didn’t turn the world into the opening moments of the film 2001 with their Large Hadron Collider. Well done CERN! No one really wants to go back to being cavemen anyway, protruding foreheads were so last year.

Let’s look forward now to 2009, with more Android handsets, larger capacity on phones, 4G mobiles and flying cars too.

Yup, you read that right.

YES there is an LG Mobile Developer Network. Finally. Excellent.

Unfortunately it is stuck in the year 1997.

Yes indeed! If you’d like to get your application on to LG handsets, it’s as simple as:

1. Spend AGES writing a sodding proposal. (Ok so it’s only two pages…)

2. Formally submit the proposal to LG. (They do have an online system for this).

3. Submit a proposal and wait for fooking AGES. (I’m assuming)

4. The LG Business Proposal team spent AGES looking through your proposal. (I’m assuming)

5. Keep waiting for AGES. (I’m assuming)

6. If you are successful — that’s a big IF — you and LG’s Business Proposal team create a contract together.

7. Insert another few months of arsing about. (I’m assuming)

8. If you are LUCKY you will be able to distribute your software on the LG Mobile Developer Network, LG Mobile.com and MAYBE even get it pre-loaded.

Well that’s easy then.

Don’t hold your breath.

It looks rather complicated.

Has anyone you know been successful? If so, I’d like to know so we can shine some light on the process.

My LG Cookie is connected!

The key function I want is the ability to sync my contacts:

I click on the SYNC button.

I get the following problem:

Well, I started Outlook as I thought you’d need it opened.

Ok. Let me close that then.

Ok now we’re looking good:

I’m only going to select ‘Contacts’ in this experiment.

I pressed the start button.

Now the screen is stuck. It’s trying to logon to the Outlook user data base.

I wonder if I need to open up Outlook now and login? A minute’s gone by and nothing has happened.

There were four OUTLOOK.exe processes running when I opened the Windows Task Manager. Not good. Nothing to do with LG I suspect, more to do with Windows being rubbish.

Once I opened Outlook, the LG Sync Manager began processing the records in my Outlook Contacts…

Oh.

So let’s try that one again.

I started the sync manager and… ah, the phone wasn’t connected. It had timed out.

Let’s switch everything off and try again properly.

Nope.

Doesn’t like that. I’m USING Outlook.

Let me close down Outlook.

GET IN!

That’s it synchronising, I think…

So I’ve 2,600 contacts.

And I *think* there is a 1,000 contact limit:

Ah. There is.

After I selected everybody, I find this on screen:

Arse.

Emmmmmmmm.

I’m not quite sure to do at this point.

Well I decided to go through and sync the phone numbers of the people I knew I need to speak to today.

8 people.

So that’s almost helpful.

Admittedly I’m sure your average 17 year old girl doesn’t have 1,000+ contacts so this isn’t going to be a big problem for many.

I do like it. It’s the sort of thing I can see a 17 or 18 year old girl walking into Carphone Warehouse and selecting. It’s cheaper than the Renoir (I’ll find out exactly how much it retails for shortly), yet it still has a lot of cool features — and it’s touchscreen. For those on a budget who want a decent handset, the LG Cookie looks like the way ahead.

But, I’d like to do a challenge.

I’d like to try using it as my primary handset for a week. Can it handle the usage? I’m sure it can. But in order to do this, at a bare minimum, I need to transfer my contacts. Ideally my calendar too.

But let’s try contacts first — they’re synched across multiple areas of the web and my devices — but they also appear in a bog standard Microsoft Outlook install too. I keep that for the purposes of testing — like now.

So I’ve installed the software from the mini cd supplied with the handset.

Then I spent a good few minutes clicking on the array of stupid Windows menus. I must have had to click about 25 times, yes, yes, install, yes, yes, next, next, finish, yes, install, yes, yes I am sure, yes. That’s Windows for you.

Then we get the connection wizard screen:

Choose a connection type… I’m not even going to bother with Bluetooth at the moment. USB is my preference:

OK, first piece of joy of the day:

I try again.

No.

It’s not having it.

What a total arse.

Let’s try again.

I’ll unplug the handset, right? Then plug it in again.

No. That didn’t work then.

Posted by email from MIR Live (posterous)

My Mum gets Carphone Warehouse letters in the post; and the other day I arrived home from School, seeking out any interesting post for myself, when I came across a little Christmas brochure. I expected to see the usual mix of non-interesting and far-fetched mobiles, which have very limited appeal to someone who is as indecisive as I.

Then I came across the LG Cookie.

I’m not an LG fan by any means, yes their phones are nice, and I have to say although I appreciate the minor attempts at creativity with their naming processes; previous experiences of LG’s have taught me that they’re not my cup of tea. Should I mention I’m not a fan of their interfaces, or just generally how they work and feel?

However, the Cookie did catch my eye! It looks nice, it’ll be a new experience, it’s a touch-screen (another learning curve), and also the ability to use an on screen QWERTY keyboard, and importantly its price.

I don’t know what to do.

Now this could just be a sporadic urge to go and spend money, and get something just because I’ve seen it, and I like the price; but then I think… LG. An interface I know I won’t like, and will struggle to get grips with, and I fear I’ll see all the flaws in my purchase just after I’ve broken that “unbreakable seal” on the box.

It’s hopeless! I do this with every wonderful find I come across, and I deliberate an item and a possible purchase so much that it either becomes outdated and therefore useless, or I decide I don’t like it although secretly still wanting it, or I’ll find something else to admire and want.

I know for one, I can’t be the only person who does this; and I know for one that it’s probably a good safety precaution my mind has implemented to stop such impulse buying – a trait I really try to avoid at all costs.

Now I wonder, why is it I find mobiles such as the Cookie, and previously before it the LG KS360 before that, and there was also a Sony mobile before that too; why is it I loose interest, and forget about it, and then find some other mobile-crush?

Could it just be that no matter how lovely one major aspect or feature of a phone is say, it’s price, a new built in gadget or a sleek, slender design; it really isn’t enough to make a mobile good, or at-least good enough to buy.

What I’m beginning to see is that mobiles tend to be about one major factor, be it its connectivity, a particular design focus, a built in application, the camera, the media, the price, or its “technological achievements”.  I don’t want just one particularly above average feature as reason to invest in a mobile; I want a device that has equally good features which aren’t just surfing above the acceptable quality in phone.

So my next mobile-crush won’t be on a weak whim, a spur-of-the moment encounter, it’ll be something which offers more than one better than alright feature, and something I won’t fall out of love with.

Feel free to e-mail me anything at Samantha@mobileindustryreview.com

Paul saw the footage we shot at the Renoir launch and, suitably impressed with the device, took the plunge.

But there’s a glaring, glaring issue with the device.

Have a read:

Hi Ewan,

I am looking for some advice. I recently upgraded my handset to an LG KC910 after seeing the footage of it from the blogger party on your show. Overall I am extremely happy with it. However one annoyance with it is when browsing music that I loaded onto the supplied micro SDcard. When you select albums they are displayed (and play in alphabetical order) not the track order specified in the tags for the files. I can see no way of changing this. The manual doesn’t mention it. I had a quick search on the web and found a few other people reporting the same issue. I tried contacting LG Mobile Phone support. The operator I spoke to couldn’t give me an answer and has emailed the head office, but couldn’t give me a time scale for a response. I was wondering what I should do next. Do you have any contacts that could give you answer on this? I suspect that the software currently on the phone doesn’t allow albums to be played in the correct order. This seems like a big oversight on LG’s part. I hope that they intend to issue a software update and soon as this was one of the reasons I went of for this phone. You may want to mention this issue on the site so that others are aware of this. I dodn’t see it in any of the (many) reviews I read.

Keep up the good work.

Regards,
Paul Newton

Quite simply, the LG Renoir is a ‘Fisherprice’ music phone.

We were never sent a Renoir test handset so we weren’t able to test these kind of things.

On the face of it, Paul should shut right up. You’ve got music, right Paul? It does play music? What more could you want?

In reality, this is 100% ridiculous. It ONLY plays music in alphabetical order?

What chump programmed that?

Total rubbish.

Total unmitigated rubbish.

You’d think some bright spark, somewhere deep in the bowels of LG, would have thought that SOME people might like to play music in ALBUM order.

Anyway to answer your questions Paul, I do have LG contacts.

I’ve got two routes to LG. One is through the LG blog. Chris and the team there are very good — but there’s not much they can do, I suspect, in this situation. I suspect all they could do is pass your enquiry to LG in Korea.

Which brings me to my second route to LG — direct to Korea. You’ll need to give me a few days Paul, but I’ll put this issue to them and ask for a response.

If they respond with some kind of acknowledgement then that’ll be good. If they respond with a fix or a solution, even better.

Trouble is, these LG devices nowadays are literally pieces of plastic and metal. They can’t be easily upgraded, even though there’s software inside. Don’t expect a 2.2 style iPhone upgrade for the Renoir.

If you’ve got suggestions for Paul, please post them here.

At the press launch, we spent some time with the handset to get a good enough feel for it, see how it works, what features it has and how it performs.

We covered the basic features of the phone in another post, so there really isn’t any need to go over old ground.

The first thing the more astute of you will notice is the phone looks exactly like the first LG Prada handset. In fact if the two were put together you’d be hard pushed to tell them apart.

The only real difference one might notice is the new LG Prada phone is a tad thicker, as you’re undoubtedly aware by now it supports a keyboard this time around.

LG and Prada both mentioned at the press event they did consider other designs. This more or less said to us they do have an imagination, and weren’t just riding the bandwagon from the success of the first model.

Both said they kept coming back to the original exterior and then finally settled on that once again. Although we’re sure there’s a thought behind this somewhere surrounding the idea of creating an iconoclastic phone design. Perhaps LG and Prada jointly are aiming to establish a brand, a look and a feel for an exclusive designer mobile series. Don’t forget this has worked for others in the premium handset market, just look towards the Motorola RAZR as an example.

We suspect that this will not be the last phone to have the same look and feel of the original mobile. Perhaps the next model should be a flip phone/clam shell in the range, with a similar exterior? Well, we’ve seen their full touch screen handset, and now a smart phone – the next just seems obvious.

How the mobile feels in your hands is very much different to how it looks, as it does appear to have a designer aesthetic minimalist edge to it. When in actual fact it’s really light, and feels really cheap and very plasticy – not at all what you would expect. Perhaps we’re spoilt of late with quality builds such as the HTC Touch Diamond or the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. The handset does come off feeling like a cheap, non exemplary, un awe-inspiring mobile phone.

It’s very disappointing when you hear of two legendary forces coming together to make a phone like this, only to be let down in just how it feels. As a lot of people will base their opinions on first impressions on how it looks, and the tactile response on first contact. One of which I’m afraid sadly let us down.

The screen is fairly sharp and easy on the eyes with its 3-inch QWVGA 240 x 400 display. The handset supports the likes of DivX playback; although we didn’t actually see this in action we were told on good authority this shows the screen off well.

Working your way around the OS shows how responsive the handset really is. The chipset is Qualcomm, running Brew as its OS with their own UI on top. This is supposedly capable of handling 7 applications comfortably running all at once, which we put through its motions to a degree and all was well.

Before we delve deeper, two things we came across at this point troubled us. We first discovered there was only 60MB of onboard storage and the battery was only a 950 mAh Lithium Polymer. Not much wiggle room in terms of capacity or a massive battery life. One is expandable to 8GB and most likely comes with a 1GB microSD card, the other is not so easily resolved.

They’re quoting 400hrs on standby and 3hrs talk time. This means to us it probably won’t even last an average day in use. Even the likes of the Xperia X1 has a 1500 mAh battery, which we’re not pitching it up against but it’s almost the same form factor and could last nearly twice as long in use.

Its browsing experience isn’t the greatest and we found it a chore to use. It’s not the most friendly to navigate. You can however install Opera Mini on the LG Prada and from what we saw makes a whole lot of difference. On the plus side the accelerometer is fully integrated and works well with everything we tried, including the browser.

There were two configurations of the UI we saw on the day. The one we pictured in an earlier post was the black lettering on a white background; the other was just the reverse. We chose the first one for the screen shots as we knew it would show up much more clearer. But the other one to be honest fits more with the phone.

From the main home page, you’re presented with a start screen much like we see on the latest Samsung mobiles. With access to a clock, some widgets and possible calendar functions or internet search.

There are actually three main screens to choose from on start-up. The other two are a basic screen with the carrier and the Prada logo. With the last providing access to the most common functions, such as: messaging, phone calls, calendar and their ilk.

These can all be accessed from each other by pressing one of the three dots at the top of the page, or by swiping your thumb from left to right on the screen. Now, it’s here that HTC should get interested.

As this way of moving from screen to screen and the way it morphs/changes is the very same way the first HTC Touch changes from menu to menu. This was then its niche and the unique feature it was marketed and sold by. When we first saw this, our immediate reaction was this is a little too close for comfort, and then we looked around the room for any HTC lawyers. None were to be found.

We listed all the other menu options in the photos the other day, so no need to go back and repeat all of that. One thing we will say is that these are presented as all being virtually laid out from corner to corner with each other, in an interesting way too. Where you can move between them all, by going from corner to corner. Think of them as all being laid out on the largest sheet of paper an A0, where all of the menu options are on A2 sheets. Where four of the A2 sheets make up an A0. You can move between the by going from 1-4 of the A2, sliding your thumb between edge to edge.

This is a way of laying these out we hadn’t seen before, when seeing it in action it simplifies all the menus of the phone. OK, it seems a little odd to spend so much time discussing the menu navigation of a mobile but it was impressive. So much so, you wonder why other handsets do not have this already. We’re sure it would clear up so much confusion to many, who do get bamboozled by such a complex structure.

Lastly, the keyboard. Having spent some weeks with the HTC Touch Diamond and another length of time with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, we’ve become accustomed to handsets with QWERY keyboards. So typing on such a beast, with a new model of a phone is always of interest.

What we can say about the LG Prada is that it puts the others to shame. It was just a simple delight to type upon, and at some speeds too. Characters weren’t missed, letters weren’t dropped, and words were picked up as if typing on a full laptop or PC keyboard.

The keyboard is laid out much like SE X1, with small keys separated by a good millimetre in between. Instead of there just being air between them all, they are reset into the keyboard itself. So to type you have to press down. Much like you would do on a button as the keys recesses into its housing. All in all this gives it a pleasurable experience in typing, unlike others mentioned so far.

For 600 Euros, the phone does seem rather expensive. Some of the features won’t sell itself to new customers who aren’t fashion conscious, others including its name will. The built quality for us comes off like it’s a demo model found in a shop, with no working parts inside. Others we spoke to on the night didn’t concur, including those at ShinyShiny whose opinions we value. Perhaps we’re being overly critical, see for yourself when it arrives later this month in shops.

LG and Prada also launched at the event the PRADA Link. It’s a fairly stylish leather strap based Bluetooth watch for use with the phone.

Once paired, the screen on the phone indicates the likes of an incoming call from the mobile, via sound or vibration. Where the call can be silenced or rejected from the wrists apparel. Only you can’t answer them in true Dick Tracy fashion; when will technology catch up with a 1930s cartoon?

It does however have the ability to view any incoming SMSs and also syncs with the phone’s calendar to remind you of appointments. So it’s half way there at least.

There’s even an alert generated on the watch when it’s out of range of the phone. A nice well thought out feature, which could even be totalled up to being a security related one too. If your mobile is in a bag or coat and you’ve breached those 10 allowed metres an alert goes off. And all just in time to see someone making off with all your worldly possessions too.

The watch does look like a nice time piece and even looks good without the onboard gadgetry. Obviously this accessory came from the studios of Prada, and to be honest does compliment the phone nicely and all for 300 Euros.

Sony Ericsson recently updated their series of Bluetooth watches that complement their phones. So it looks like this could be a winner in terms of pimping out your mobile.

For one it’s a lot more discrete and polite to occasionally glance at your wrist on an incoming SMS or a missed call, instead of rudely staring at your mobile every few seconds.

Although it might come across you’re bored of someone’s company and want to leave asap for another much more pressing engagement. As frequent watch checking could even be more socially unacceptable than phone checking.