LG shows off Arena smartphone, video watch phone

16.02.2009
LG Electronics CEO Skott Ahn had a little time on his hands before the company's news conference at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday, so he called up his buddy Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, for a video chat on a prototype wristwatch phone.

The video call somewhat overshadowed the company's purpose in calling the conference: the launch of the glitzy 3D S-Class User Interface on new smartphones, including what LG said is the first phone to run the latest version of Microsoft's Windows Mobile.

The CEOs chatted for several minutes about their partnership, with a somewhat grainy Ballmer looming larger than life on a giant screen relaying the image that Ahn could see on the wristwatch's 1.43-inch display.

The LG-GD910 watch phone can make voice calls over GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks and video calls over 3G (third-generation) networks, transferring data at up to 7.2M bps on HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) networks, according to LG. It contains a digital audio player that connects to Bluetooth stereo headsets, voice recognition and text-to-speech functions, a phonebook and a scheduler, the company said -- but there's no word on whether it tells the time.

This is not the first trade show at which LG has demonstrated the watch phone. It first appeared at CES in Las Vegas last year, and was there again this year. Now LG says it is "market ready" and will go on sale in Europe at the end of this year.

LG's 3D S-Class User Interface will appear somewhat sooner, with the LG-KM900 Arena going on sale in Europe in March and elsewhere later in the year.