LG has officially announced its new LG Prada II designer phone. LG hopes the Prada II will build on the success of the original LG Prada phone, which was touted by many as an iPhone killer when it was first launched. In fact, as the first touchscreen phones to be released on the market, the original Prada looked so similar to the iPhone, that many people wondered if they were developed by the same team!

They weren’t of course, and although the Prada sold over a million units, it never matched the success of the iPhone.

The LG Prada II, in contrast, is being released into a world that’s nopw grown accustomed to touchscreen phones, and so won’t have the direct iPhone comparisons to struggle against. This has give LG the freedom to be a bit more experimental with its design.

As you can see from the pics, the LG Prada II comes with a slide out QWERTY keyboard, making it more of a smartphone than the original Prada (which was just a smart phone!). It also implicitly says that LG couldn’t get text entry to work properly on its touchscreen phones, and so needed to revert back to a physical keyboard!

In other respects, the new Prada is similar in use to the original version, but it’s had its feature-set brought right up to date:

• 3G video calling
• 7.2Mbsp HSDPA
• Full HTM browser
• Wi-Fi
• 5 mega pixel camera with Schneider-Kreuznach lens

In fact, other than GPS, it’s so fully-loaded with features, it even gives tpo-end smartphones a run for their money.

The LG Prada II looks like a great successor to the original Prada phone, combining style, ease of use and fantastic features. I’ve no doubt it’ll sell another million phones for LG.

The new LG Prada II release date is the fourth quarter of 2008 (so, now then!), priced 600 Euros.