Phone rating: 
In a nutshell: The LG Chocolate KG800 is a beautiful phone with touch-sensitive keys that definitely scores 10 out of 10 when it comes to looks! It's available in a choice of black, pink or lilac. It has a built-in camera, music player and Bluetooth wireless connectivity. The camera isn't the best and memory is limited, with enough space to store around 30 songs. Other complaints include poor battery life and overly-sensitive buttons. But despite these problems the Chocolate has been near the top of the best-selling list for the past year. It's now available incredibly cheaply and continues to sell rapidly, but stocks will run out soon, so get yours now if you want one!
Best buy: *Free* LG Chocolate with free line rental for 12 months from mobiles.co.uk; or £34.95 on Pay as you Go from the Carphone Warehouse (available in lilac & black).
From time to time a phenomenonally original phone is released. The LG KG800 (nicknamed the LG Chocolate) is one such phone. In an age when pink seems to be the "in" colour, the LG is brown (very dark - almost black) with a beautiful gloss finish and sliver detailing. The idea that it looks like a bar of chocolate is tenuous, but it's definitely an eye-catcher, and the more that you see the cooler it gets.
A sliding phone, when closed the Chocolate just looks mysterious. It's dark, with a dark LCD screen, and just an LG logo and a silver OK button to give any clue about what to do with it. The hidden keypad is touch sensitive and glows red when in use. When opened, the full keypad is available. There are also buttons around the edge for volume control and multimedia - MP3, camera and video. The design works well and looks fantastic, although the touch-sensitive keys are quite sensitive and take a little getting used to.
Feature-wise, the Chocolate comes with a 1.3 megapixel camera (with flash) and a video camera. The display is high quality. The Chocolate has an MP3 player that can handle a wide range of formats. Music can be controlled from the touch pad or with the inline remote control supplied with the handset. A headset is included and this plugs into the charging port. MP3 ringtones are supported, and there's 128 Mbytes of memory which is pretty good, although a memory card option would have been nice to have. Both wireless Bluetooth connectivity and USB are supported. Interestingly the Chocolate can function as a mass storage device with software to enable photos, videos and music tracks to be dragged and dropped between phone and PC.
The Chocolate is quite slim and compact and weighs just 83g, making it an ideal handbag companion. Equally it will easily fit into a jeans pocket. The keypad is sensitive to touch and heat, so it won't be activated when in a bag. Battery life is below average and the phone will need charging every few days.
The Chocolate is definitely a cool phone to be seen with but it does have its problems. The touch sensitive buttons look fantastic, but have been known to drive people insane! The Chocolate is also not the most reliable phone ever, and suffers from poor battery life. Before buying, also consider the Samsung E900 and the newer LG Shine. If you decide to buy the Chocolate you'll find some incredible deals online- on Pay as you Go you can buy it online from the Carphone Warehouse for an incrediby cheap £34.95 in a choice of lilac or black.
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Features of the LG Chocolate KG800 include:
- 1.3 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom and flash
- Video camera
- Display: TFT, 256,000 colours, 176 x 220 pixels
- Music player (supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, AAC++ and WMA file formats)
- MP3 ringtones (64 voice polyphonic)
- Messaging: SMS, EMS, MMS, Email
- Java games
- Memory: 128 Mbytes
- Connectivity: Bluetooth 1.2, USB
- WAP 2.0
- Triband
- Size: 95 x 48 x 15 mm
- Weight: 83g
- Battery standby: 200 hours
