The LG Prada phone launch has begun in South Korea, with the phone gradually making its way into the hands of European fashionistas by January. 

The new handset, which we had a play with recently, is actually the third Prada and LG combo phone to be released to market. The Prada connection means design is paramount with the phone, don't go expecting no cutting edge hardware here, looks is what the Prada 3.0 is all about. 

Forget the usual special gold bezel or crappy Swarovski crystals, there isn't even any dinosaur bone to be seen, instead the handset is all about understated design and style. A customised Android 2.3 UI designed by Prada themselves, features simple black and white icons. Widgets are also not the usual HTC affair, swapping full screen weather apps that tell you the temperature in fifty countries, to just clean and small colourless widgets. 

Although not being quite up there with the Android top dogs, the Prada phone is actually quite surprising in the power department, with 1GHz of dual-core goodness and 1GB of RAM to play with. Expandable microSD storage and an 8 megapixel camera completes the hardware package quite nicely. NFC also raises its near field communicating head, making our comment about hardware not being important earlier rather obsolete. The final specs flourish worth mentioning is the 4.3 inch 800 x 480 display, which definitely does justice to the custom looks of Prada's own UI. 

What really matters is the pricing of the handset. Given it performs in both the design and specs department, we can see this one being quite a big seller. Shame then that we still haven't got a final cost of the phone, although we expect it to be priced at around £499. It is selling for about $780 in Korea if that is anything to go by.

The Prada 3.0 could end up being rather a good little phone. Definitely one of the cheaper ways of getting your hands on the Prada label and better still, you get a top notch handset to go with it. Much more exciting than a trendy suit or pair of shoes. 

What do you think to the LG Prada phone? Let us know in the comments below ...