LG Announces the launch in SA of the "Chocolate Phone"

LG Electronics has launched this year’s must-have mobile phone – the chic, sleek and stylish LG Chocolate phone.

“This is so much more than a fashion phone,” says Mike Sidwell, Director GSM Sales and Marketing LG Mobile South Africa. “Modern buying trends are governed as much by emotion as by product specification and the LG Chocolate phone connects on both levels. It is totally unique, utterly desirable and yet affordable.”

Sleek and visually stunning, the LG Chocolate phone remains completely black until the touch-pad – a world’s first for mobile phones – is gently brushed. Once activated, the phone’s signature design feature, its glowing red touch-sensitive icons, bring to life a ‘hidden’ full-colour screen that completes the phone’s unique look and feel of minimalism with a modern twist.

Having already won two European design awards (iF Design Award and Red dot Design Award for its unique styling and user interface), the LG Chocolate Phone raises the standard of how mobile phones look and feel. It is also the first handset from LG’s new ‘Black Label’ range of design-led mobile phones, aimed at users who value style as highly as they value technology. LG Electronics is the world’s first mobile phone manufacturer to create a completely separate range of exclusively designed, premium mobile products.

The phone is also environmentally friendly, having gained certification from the European Union regarding its compliance with the Removal of Hazardous Substances legislation that comes into effect across Europe this July. To obtain the certification, LG Electronics improved a number of features on the Chocolate phone. Key buttons were coated with aluminium and tin. Other parts that had a possibility of containing hazardous substances were changed to non-toxic materials. LG Electronics also used lead-free solder cream to fix parts on the PWB (Printed Wired Board).

“Our Black Label series brings something totally new to the mobile market, the category of the design innovative phone sector. Other manufacturers have launched models that have design as a key attribute, but with the LG Chocolate phone, we have become the first manufacturer to pro-actively design and market a phone based on its visual and emotional appeal. Of course, being LG, the Chocolate phone like all subsequent Black Label products, will have a high standard of technical specification but its primary appeal is its design, and we believe it will prove extremely popular with style sensitive mobile phone users across South Africa.”

Already a favorite with cool-hunting, trend leaders in Korea, the eagerly anticipated LG Chocolate phone – which has sold over 400,000 units since it was launched in Korea last November, boasts a class-leading MP3/AAC music player, 128 meg of on-board memory, a 1.3 mega-pixel camera and video camera… all this in a phone that is slim enough to slip into the pocket of a shirt or a pair of tight jeans. Battery life is an impressive 200 hours standby with 3 hours 20 minutes talk time.

The LG Chocolate phone will retail for around R3 499 (Incl. VAT) without a contract, and will be available through all network provider outlets (cost according to individual tariffs). It is available from Thursday 18 May 2006. Look out for more Black Label launches in the near future.