To say that LG began its touch-screen evolution of handsets with the Prada Phone is entirely inaccurate. But, instead, it was the one which followed some time after - the 'Viewty', or also known as the KU990. This latter model attracted great interest amongst the many different facet of mobile users, given the extended features list that it has.

But for its maker, I believe they saw a great future for their newly-developed UI - seeing just how Apple's iPhone touch-based interface took off like a rocket! Granted that LG's creation doesn't even come close in providing the same look-and-feel, but it has done enough to make things interesting enough for their upcoming products.

Enter the KF600 and KF700, each with their own set of special qualities - but based on a similar idea of further extending the handset's overall usability though the mix-and-match of both physical and virtual interfaces.

Starting with the former, the KF600 (product site | photos) takes on a typical silder phone design - display on the top / front section, and the physical keypad on the lower / bottom portion. So far, nothing really rings any bells. But when you take a closer look at the small rectangular panel beneath the main display, you will find that it is a touch-sensitive area that's serves as a virtual keypad - called the 'InteractPad' - one that changes consistently with the currently-active phone function. You can see a few photo samples of this in the slideshow here.

What makes this great is that overall usability isn't compromised because of the employment of a touch-sensitive UI. The key here was to retain a physical setup for the 12-button numerical keypad, being the primary input device when it comes to those many mobile phone operations (e.g. number dialling, name entries, and - most importantly - messaging). When moving to secondary operations, those that do not require as much thumb- or finger-work, it is actually quite alright to go for something slightly fancy - and in the case of the KF600, LG has performed this miracle rather spectacularly.

Not only is this small display area used for input - but it can also work in sync with the primary display when the screen saver is activated. The effect of this is actually quite intriguing at first sight, and it doesn't lose its charm even after having seen it many times over. Again, I still find the whole idea as being simply quite amazing.

The KF600 is a tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900) only phone (no 3G yet, sad to say), and will be offered in four different colours upon their availability. I've also included an official video for this model, which demonstrates some of its features plus the usability benefits of the added InteractPad area.




Moving on, the KF700 (photos) is - to simply put it - an upgraded version of the current KU990 / 'Viewty' model, with the exception that it doesn't offer the same 5-megapixel camera (instead, a generic 3-megapixel one has been fitted). From the physical interface, which now adds a slide-out numerical keypad and a "shortcut dial" (or jog-dial-like) device for a greater choice in device input, to the on-board features that matter (HSDPA upgraded to the higher-speed 7.2 Mbps, and an improvement to the general UI's firmware), it makes it an even-easier decision for anyone wanting a device with so much choice to start with.

And considering that the KF700 retains the same 3-inch display as what the 'Viewty' got, and the fact that a physical keypad is now available on demand, compromise no longer seems an issue for a device of such. Of course, LG isn't the first in the market with such a product - but they do seem to be the pioneer when you look at it from a phone-only device perspective. Boasting that the KF700 is the world's first phone with three input methods isn't a statement that's casually put in black-and-white.

Expected availability of the KF700 is for mid-March (Europe), with other markets in the months to follow.

Products also touched on were the KF510 (photos), a fashion-orientated slider phone consisting of an extra-slim body and "dynamic touchpad with interactive touch lighting and emotional animation" (what a mouthful!) It will come in two different colours, "Stardust Dark Grey" and "Sunset Red" - and the phone's front display and touchpad areas will be enclosed by a sheet of tempered glass, giving it a more-elegant look plus increased durability.

A Windows Mobile enabled model, the KS-20 (product site) was also mentioned - which takes on a very simiar look to Samsung's F480. This 3G-enabled model will be running the Professional version of WM6 (touch-screen enabled), and features a 2.8-inch QVGA display along with a dual-camera setup (2-megapixel primary, VGA as secondary). The KS-20 is HSDPA-enabled (supports downlink speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps), and utilises microSD cards for memory expansion.