While we in the U.S. may be excited about the iPhone, the rest of the world may not be as much. That’s because while the iPhone will come out in June in the U.S., Europe will have to wait until Q4 2007, and Asia won’t even get it until 2008! So, for those of you Europeans waiting for a slick touchscreen phone, meet the LG Prada.
As its name suggests, the LG Prada (or LG KE850) was co-developed by Prada and LG as a super-sleek, entirely touchscreen, quad-band EDGE mobile phone, digital music player, and Internet navigator, plus a 2 megapixel camera. Sound familiar? Well, the iPhone and the Prada do differ in many ways. One, of course, is that the Prada doesn’t actually run OS X, or any desktop operating system for that matter. The Prada also lacks the ability to play protected AAC songs from the iTunes Store, is a little bit smaller than the iPhone (98.8 × 54 × 12 mm vs. 115 × 61 × 11.6 mm), and lacks Apple’s ingenious multi-touch interface. But, the Prada does tote some features that the iPhone doesn’t have, like a Microsoft Office and PDF document viewer and MicroSD card expandability.
But, when will the iPhone be available, and for how much? Well, LG hasn’t announced any details on availability in the U.S., though the phone will be in stores in the U.K., Italy, France, and Germany in late February. Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore will get the phone in late March, and South Korea in the second quarter of this year. The phone will run for a cool 600 euros ($777.12 as of now), so it’s not exactly a bargain (what do you expect from Prada?). I only wish the phone would be available in the U.S. with EV-DO, as a Verizon phone would be the only cell with a chance of winning over the iPhone in my mind.
[via theappleblog]
"But, when will the iPhone be available, and for how much? Well, LG hasn't announced any details on availability in the U.S."
The iPhone will be available in June, of course.
By the way, David Pogue has it on good authority that the iPhone will include a PDF reader.
I've read many places that the iPhone will include a PDF reader, so I'm pretty sure it'll show up.
However, there is uncertainty as to whether or not the iPhone will open Microsoft Office documents.
600 euros of one, 600 dollars of the other; expensive is still expensive. Seriously, why pay more than $100 for a phone and then pay an extra monthly fee to use some of those features? I've had Cingular, I know people who have Verizon and I have SprintPCS, and I'm sure some of those capabilities will have current/future Prada and iPhone owners paying extra. The reality of how much money will be spent on top of that phone will set in after a year, and I think there will be some pretty pissed off consumers.