September 29 - 11:05pm EDT   LG this evening planned to cement its hold on touchscreen phones with the KP500. Unlike LG's normally high-end full touch devices, the new handset is designed to be inexpensive enough for those who would opt for a conventional phone without sacrificing some of the core touch features: it has the same three-inch touch display as the Prada, Viewty, and similar phones but a simpler design that has multiple color choices, including brown and gold. LG implies a 5-megapixel camera and an accelerometer that auto-rotates the display. [full story]

September 26 - 10:45am EDT   LG's Prada II touchscreen media phone already has largely fixed launch plans, a tip to Pocket-lint asserts. Official statements from LG have so far only slated an update for the fall, but an alleged insider now says the touchscreen device will ship in November and that Europe will be the first to pick up the Prada sequel, as it did for the original phone in spring 2007. [full story]

September 24 - 7:30am EDT   LG today said that it has sold one million Prada phones worldwide, making it one of the Korean company's best-selling individual touchscreen devices. The device was one of the earliest direct competitors to the iPhone and was developed at roughly the same time with a launch a few months earlier. Individually, the device has fared relatively poorly compared to its Apple rival's over six million but forms part of a larger touchscreen lineup that LG said slightly edged Apple in July. [full story]

August 22 - 11:30am EDT   LG this morning surprised the phone market with an early look at the KC910. Considered a spiritual successor to the KU990 Viewty, the new device has both LG's highest-resolution camera at eight megapixels but is still thin enough at 14mm (0.55in) to fit comfortably in a pocket. The new camera sensor is also said to lose nothing in image quality over the Viewty with full speed, 30FPS 640x480 video capture, a special 120FPS slow-motion mode and an ISO 1600 light sensitivity comparable more to dedicated point-and-shoot cameras than cellphones. [full story]

August 20 - 3:20pm EDT   LG is developing a direct sequel to its Prada phone that will fix some of the flaws, says a leak stemming from BGR. The device is still in mid-development but has been spotted in an image with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard that would address criticisms of slow typing with the first Prada while hiding the keyboard away to maintain a similar appearance in normal use. [full story]

July 21 - 7:55am EDT   LG on Monday revealed that it has sold about seven million touchscreen cellphones since the company first introduced a full touch device through the Prada Phone in early 2007. The company claims to have the "leadership" of the category and notes that two million of these are the KU990 Viewty cameraphone; the next most popular devices are the North America-focused Venus and Voyager at 1.6 million and 1.3 million examples each, according to the company. The remaining 2.1 million are split between the Vu as well as models that are largely only available in Europe or Korea. [full story]

June 20 - 10:05am EDT   NTT DoCoMo is defending its inability to secure an iPhone deal, writes Japan's Impress Watch. Speaking at a shareholder meeting, DoCoMo CEO Masao Nakamura has stated that while the iPhone is attractive and has an appealing fanbase, many of its features are already present on the likes of LG's Prada touchscreen phone, or the Sharp SH906i. The first iPhone was also unusually heavy, says Nakamura, although he appreciates that the 3G model weighs only 4.7 ounces. [full story]

May 21 - 11:00am EDT   Fashion house Christian Dior is today unveiling a new phone it says will help lift the company's profile. The Dior phone takes a different approach than the LG Prada or Samsung's P520 Armani and opts for flip design with both a keypad and a touchscreen. Additionally, the new phone includes a miniature handset known as the My Dior: the device is small enough to clip to a bag but pairs with the main phone to handle most call functions by itself. [full story]

May 1 - 3:50pm EDT   Fashion design firm Prada on Thursday said it would launch its LG Prada phone in Japan, signaling one of the few carrier-based releases for the touchscreen device outside of Europe. The phone will be paired up with dominant carrier NTT DoCoMo and will primarily be sold from Prada's own stores rather than cellular or electronics shops. Few details of the local phone are available, though the handset is likely to include some level of 3G support to handle Japan's networks and should keep the 2-megapixel camera of the original. [full story]

April 25 - 12:05pm EDT   LG is gearing up for a direct sequel to its popular Prada designer phone, if an advance listing at a Taiwan shop proves authentic. The retailer claims to have a preview of the simply-titled Prada II that appears to improve several shortcomings of the early 2007 original. Still dominated by a 3-inch touchscreen, the phone will purportedly gain a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and heavily requested support for 3G Internet access over HSDPA (up to 7.2Mbps). Wi-Fi will also be added to fill in gaps in cellular data. [full story]

March 17 - 2:55pm EDT   New information has allegedly been revealed on the VX9700, an LG phone approved by the FCC and headed to Verizon Wireless. Among these are hardware features such as a 3.2-megapixel camera, using a Schneider Kreuznach lens; storage is said to be expandable with microSDHC cards, while sync can be conducted through a micro-USB port. Text can supposedly be entered in several ways, including T9 entry, multi-tap, or an on-screen QWERTY keyboard. [full story]

March 7 - 12:15pm EST   The Federal Communications Commission has approved a new LG phone, codenamed the VX9700. The VX designation indicates that it is headed for Verizon Wireless, although few other details have been made public; rumors suggest that the phone may be variant of the Prada fashion phone, which in turn is similar to Verizon's existing Voyager, except that it uses a full-face touchscreen and omits a physical keyboard. One possibility is that the phone is related to the Vu, which is in fact connected to the Prada phone but is currently scheduled to appear on AT&T. A CDMA conversion would be needed for Verizon. [full story]

February 15 - 3:20pm EST   The delay in AT&T's mobile digital TV service has been confirmed, says a claimed source. While a company roadmap the tip suggests that both "legal issues" as well as technical troubles with the MediaFLO digital TV tuning processor have pushed the release back by as little as two or as many as eight weeks beyond existing delays, possibly resulting in a mid-April release. An initial release had been set for just after the Consumer Electronics Show in January. [full story]