LG PRADA Phone K2 Confirmed For Early 2012

LG and Prada have confirmed plans to launch the third PRADA phone in early 2012, sharing some early sketches of the fashion-centric smartphone but refusing to spill technical details. The device – believed to be the Android-powered PRADA K2 first spotted on a leaked roadmap midway through this year – will be a combination of "style, design and breakthrough technology" according to the two firms, and certainly looks to do away with a physical keyboard.

LG's original PRADA phone was released back in 2007, pre-empting the iPhone with a capacitive touchscreen though running a featurephone OS rather than anything more ambitious. The two companies followed that up with the PRADA Phone 2.0, adding a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a Bluetooth watch that could show alerts and messages while the handset was safe in your pocket.

Neither version has been a true smartphone, however, something which is expected to change in this third iteration. LG is believed to have funneled its NOVA display technology into the handset, delivering around 1,000 nits of brightness and making for a screen twice as bright as that of the iPhone, along with HSPA+ and an 8-megapixel main camera.

That could well change by the time the PRADA phone 3.0 launches, however, as could the OS versions which, last we heard, was expected to be Gingerbread. Of course, Google is on to Ice Cream Sandwich now, so we'd hope LG would keep pace with that.