The LG Prada was the first capacitive touchscreen phone, not the iPhone - Android

There’s no question that the iPhone radically changed the smartphone industry. Decades from now, there will be two eras of mobile technology: pre-iPhone and post-iPhone. However, it’s important to remember that the iPhone wasn’t the first of its kind. Instead, that honor goes to the little-known LG Prada.

The LG KE850 — marketed as the LG Prada as part of a tie-in with the designer fashion brand — wasn’t too dissimilar from the iPhone or future Android phones. It featured hardware buttons on the front underneath a capacitive touchscreen. It had an app drawer, Bluetooth, a camera, a web browser, and obviously sent and received phone calls and text messages.

Related: The best Android phones of the decade: 2010 – 2019

It also launched a month before the iPhone and even hit store shelves before the iPhone did, which officially makes it the very first mobile phone with a capacitive touchscreen. Apple, though, seems to have stolen all of the Prada’s thunder over the years.

It’s been over 13 years since the launch of the LG Prada, and we thought we’d take a look at it with some fresh eyes. With some hands-on time, we set out to discover why the iPhone changed the industry while the KE850 is barely a blip on the radar.

You’d think the Prada would be more premium

Obviously, we couldn’t walk down to our local Best Buy and pick up a 13-year-old smartphone. To get the LG Prada, we bought a used one on eBay. Thankfully, it came with its original box and even all its original accessories, but the device itself was worn down pretty bad.

Almost every aspect of the LG Prada is made of plastic. The front and back are made of a glossy black plastic while a chrome-painted plastic ring wraps around the outer edges. The rear camera module, though, is partially made of metal, which makes the device pretty top-heavy.

The LG Prada has a designer name attached to it, but the build of the phone does not suggest designer quality.

Whoever owned this phone beforehand clearly used it for a time as their daily driver, as the device was scuffed and chipped in many different areas. The chrome paint around the edges, in particular, now makes the phone look cheap since its scuffs give away the plastic construction. Even the Prada logo at the top has faded half away.

Editor's Pick

The iPhone turns 13 today and there’s been nothing like it since

Today, the first iPhone turns 13 years old. On January 9, 2007, then Apple CEO Steve Jobs showed off the device for the first time at the MacWorld Conference & Expo. Even if you're not …

This is likely one of the first reasons why the iPhone made such a splash while the LG Prada has been lost to history. The original iPhone was constructed mostly of metal and glass, so even today it would probably still look pretty good.

The mostly-plastic LG Prada, though, doesn’t feel worthy of the Prada name. When you think Prada, you think premium, and the LG KE850 doesn’t really live up to that in a physical sense.

In other words, iPhone: 1, LG Prada: 0.

Some very strange spec decisions

We love talking about specs here at Android Authority. The LG Prada, for its time, actually had quite a few areas on its specs sheet where it hit a home run. Unfortunately, there are simultaneously too many areas where it comes up short on specs, even for 2006.

Let’s start with the good stuff. One of the most surprising aspects I noticed about the LG Prada when I first turned it on was that it has Bluetooth support. Bluetooth had been around in commercial devices since 2001, though, so I don’t know why I was surprised. It has Bluetooth 2.0, which at the time was the latest-and-greatest.

For a 2006 phone, the LG Prada had some interesting specs and features, including a then-new microSD card slot.

The LG KE850 also has a microSD card slot. Although a lot of mobile phones in 2006 had them, the technology was still fairly new, as the microSD card format had only been approved in the year prior. The LG Prada could handle microSD cards up to 2GB in size.

Finally, the camera on the LG Prada is actually better than the one that would eventually land on the original iPhone. Not only did it have the same resolution (2MP at 1,600×1,200) but it also had a flash and captured video, two things the iPhone didn’t have.

Here is the full specs table for the LG Prada. Take a look and then let’s talk about the big mistakes LG made here.

The most obvious mistake here is the lack of Wi-Fi capabilities on the LG Prada. This is pretty much inexcusable as the first mobile phones with Wi-Fi came out as early as 2004. To include a web browser on a 2006 smartphone and not also include Wi-Fi connectivity is just insane.

Another huge problem is the amount of internal storage on the Prada. That’s not a typo up there: the Prada really only has a measly 8MB of built-in storage. Sure, you can add up to 2GB more with a microSD card, but even the lowest-level iPhone came with 4GB of storage built-in.

Editor's Pick

Best Android phones with expandable memory (December 2019)

A few years ago, high-end phones with expandable memory started to become a dying breed. However, while not every device may have it, this feature is certainly not going away. There are still many great …

Finally, while it’s great the battery is removable, its 800mAh capacity is pretty bad. The iPhone had nearly twice that at 1,400mAh. Battery capacity isn’t everything, but user reports from LG Prada owners claim the battery wasn’t great.

While the LG Prada wasn’t universally disappointing as far as specs go, it’s easy to see that it left a lot to be desired. Once again, we gotta hand it to the iPhone here for delivering the specs that count the most (even if the inability to record video was a terrible move).

So that’s iPhone: 2, LG Prada: 0.

The camera, though, is surprisingly good

In 2006, the LG Prada's camera would have been top-of-the-line.

With the Prada branding attached to the LG KE850, it should come as little surprise that the camera on the phone is top-notch (once again, for 2006). The rear camera module records stills and video, includes a flash, and the software gives you a surprising degree of control over your shots.

There’s no selfie camera here (the iPhone didn’t have one either), but LG does include a very tiny mirror to the left of the camera lens. Using this, you can somewhat see your face and gauge whether or not you will be in the frame if you try to take a selfie. It’s a lo-fi solution, but it’s more than the iPhone did.

Before we talk more about the camera, here are some example shots. These pictures are unedited and presented in their original 4:3 aspect ratio: