LG Prada

LG is a relative newcomer to the UK handset market, particularly when compared to the old lags Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and even fellow Koreans Samsung. Yet it's made a name for itself with the minimalist cool of the modish Chocolate series.

Most of the Chocolate models may be pretty low on spec, but that's hardly the point; their sleek looks and nifty touch-sensitive cases have had style-conscious punters queuing up to pocket them.

Now LG has gone a stage further with the luxurious-looking Prada, styled in conjunction with the fashion house apparently beloved of Old Nick. It's certainly a slick little handful, with the Chocolate-esque shiny black fascia offset with chrome trim. It comes with an equally swish Saffiano black leather case, which doesn't quite cover the whole phone, leaving the large Prada logo exposed.

The stereo headphones incidentally, also have a discreet Prada logo, as does a Bluetooth headset, available separately. It's all about the label, darling.

Aside from the tasteful good looks, it's the Prada's large touch screen that stands out. There's no stylus, as you're expected to use your thumbs to operate it (it comes with a nice cloth to wipe off any unsightly paw prints). But while this could have been awkward, the interface has clearly been thought out and there's never any need for pinpoint accuracy when pressing the large on-screen icons and controls.

That said, it's not always quite as sensitive as it could be, and fast-paced pressing is a no-no, which obviously sets limitations on the phone's gaming ability.

Ah yes, the games. It comes with Java support, but the lack of a hard-button keypad means you're a bit limited in the choice of suitable titles. It does, however, come with four preloaded games which make best use of the touch-screen interface, though they're more focused on testing your puzzle-solving skills than your lightning digits.

Halloween Fever is a gothic-themed game in the Tetris fashion, except that you're obliged to click on adjacent shapes to get them to disappear. Photo Puzzle invites you to touch pieces of a mixed up photo to swap them around to complete the picture, a bit like those sliding puzzles that filled tenth birthday party goody bags the nation over in the '80s.

So far, so boring, but Virus offers something a bit more challenging. The screen can take quite a battering in this, since you're required to tap on any invading virus organisms that take up residence on your phone. If they multiply, you lose. They're tricky little blighters too, and come up with defensive shields and teleportation to thwart your flexing thumbs – you'll need a hard, abrupt tapping action to nail them.

Lastly, Pipe casts you as a plumber fixing a house – you swap the bits of pipe around until you find a set-up that won't flood the premises.

These games all very well as far as they go, but much more important is whether we will see many of the sorts of games we review on Pocket Gamer being released in LG Prada versions. We're sceptical, to be honest, and while we love the handet's gaming potential, for now we can't really recommend it to mobile gamers.

Extras include a 2-megapixel camera with a Schneider Kreuznach lens, which sounds good since they're the lenses that Kodak uses, but we didn't notice much difference between this and other midrange camphones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson in practice.

There's also an MP3 player, with a suitably stylish interface, though the phone doesn't come with a USB cable for transferring tracks from your PC and an FM radio. Extra memory (and you'll need it – there's only 8MB on board) is catered for via a microSD card slot, which frustratingly requires you to remove the battery to get at it.

At the end of the day, there's no way that the LG Prada is going to be anyone's favourite gaming phone. That's not what it was designed for, and the sort of person who buys one won't be overly concerned at the prognosis. But if you can put up with the crowds who'll be looking over your shoulder to ogle at its undoubted good looks, there's still fun to be had.