LG PRADA KE850 Phone Review

Messaging:

The Messages menu, featuring the text, multimedia and email messages, is in the main menu. The problem is that these are not combined and therefore there are separate icons for each option, which overburdens the menu.

You can adjust your phone, so that you can check your email, but you have to do that manually and the phone will not do it for you. Both POP3 and IMAP are supported, so that you have a freedom of choice.

Unfortunately, Instant Messenger is not maintained directly from the phone, but you can add it as a 3rd party application.

Connectivity:

The Prada phone is a three-band (900/1800/1900MHz) GSM/EDGE phone, which limits its use in America to zones with coverage in the 1900-MHz band. The support of EDGE allows speeds up to 384kbps, which is much faster than GPRS, but slower than the third-generation UMTS. The unavailability of 3G does not allow you to conduct video calls from your trendy phone.

Locally the PRADA is connected, using the Bluetooth technology. The latest 2.0 protocol version is maintained and we are glad that we find here also the A2DP and AVRCP multimedia profiles for stereo music, enabling you to listen to music on wireless devices, using the same technology.

The computer connection is done via the cable, included in the set. You should choose from the phone’s menu the mode to be activated upon connecting to a computer: the mass storage mode, allowing you to transfer files in both directions (at about 550 KBps) like a local device, or the Data Storage mode, enabling you to synchronize your phone with your computer. In the latter mode, using the software from the disc, included in the set, we transferred 129 contacts from a computer to the phone for just 2 minutes 10 seconds. Using the software, you can synchronize also Schedules from the calendar and Memos. What we found inconvenient was that the synchronization is not actually with the Outlook, but with the program in which you import the information from the Outlook (in our case, we imported contacts). Next time you add new contacts from your phone to you computer, they’ll be saved in that program and not with the other Outlook contacts. This is inconvenient, in case you’re using it as a main computer organizer and you want to synchronize it with other devices.


Internet:

The internet browser of the PRADA is a mediocre WAP2.0 one. It opens standard HTML pages, but renders them in order to fit on the phone's screen, changing the way the originally look. It doesn't offer a "desktop view" option, and cannot be compared to the browsers of smartphones using Symbian or Windows Mobile or with some good phone browsers like the one of new Motorola phones. A disadvantage that makes itself apparent when viewing large WebPages is also the speed of EDGE, which would have been much faster with UMTS or WiFi, neither of which is unfortunately maintained here.