The bad news: it’s €899. Subsidized. On contract. Seriously. Orange has finally made LG’s highly anticipated GD910 Watch Phone official, confirming it will be the phone’s exclusive carrier in Europe. The sleek 3G touchscreen handset wristset is available immediately in France and the aforementioned price is tied to “an Origami star, first, jet or Origami plus package (12 or 24-month contract).” Unsurprisingly, no contract-free pricing is listed. We’re really interested to see where this thing goes to be honest. Here’s our conundrum: If you have €899 (about $1,300) to spend on a phone, you should already be rocking a pretty solid watch, no? Not necessarily anything too crazy per se, but a solid timepiece that you probably spent at least a few grand on. In fact, odds are good you have several nice watches to choose from each morning. Now you’re going to replace them with a Watch Phone? One that you have to wear each and every day — because it’s your phone — unless you swap the SIM constantly? Sorry guys, we’re just not seeing it. If you are seeing it however, and you think $1,300 on contract is a fair price, it’s time to pack up your things and move across the pond as we can’t imagine that this little guy is going to make it to the US any time soon — FCC approval or not.

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To be perfectly honest, it’s hard to know whether or not we actually care about the possibility of LG’s upcoming GD910 watch phone touching down in the US. If the pricing comes in as high as had been rumored a few months ago — $1,500 or more — then the answer is most definitely no. If LG can manage to simmer down a bit and hit a more realistic price point… Well, it might be fun to play with for a minute. Whether or not the GD910 will officially hit US soil is still an unknown but its stroll through the FCC halls at least makes it a much more likely possibility. As far as frequencies covered in the FCC documents, don’t get too excited. GSM/GPRS/EDGE 1900 is all we’ve got so far but it still looks like there are still a bunch of documents that haven’t been released yet so maybe LG will surprise us with some US 3G. And maybe not. Hit the jump for the label as found with the patent app.

[Via Engadget Mobile]

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More interesting news from the UK today as it looks like LG’s would-be-highly-anticipated-if-not-for-the-insanely-high-rumored-price-tag GD910 watch phone is set to become a reality next month. Orange has reportedly confirmed that LG’s Dick Tracy-esque wrist gear will hit store shelves some time in August as an exclusive, though Orange exclusivity will only be for “a limited time”. The carrier hasn’t yet pinned a price on the touchscreen GD910 watch phone and we don’t blame them considering it’s rumored to be in the £1,000 range (about $1,612 at today’s exchange rate) on a pay-as-you-go plan or SIM-only. And you thought the Nokia N97 was expensive. For the sake of our British friends’ wallets, let’s hope the rumored price is way high and this little HSDPA-ready wristwatch drops with a slightly less ridiculous price tag. As for availability on this side of the Atlantic — don’t hold your breath.

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Put off by the £1,000 price tag LG and Orange will reportedly attempt to fetch for the upcoming GD910 watch phone? Don’t fret, English brothers, as your dreams of hitting the streets Dick Tracy style are not dead in the water just yet. Hyundai has just confirmed it will soon be launching a new watch phone of its own and just as the company has done in other markets, the touchscreen MB-910 watch phone is all about undercutting the competition. The MB-910 is much less capable than LG’s offering of course, but it does have a few advantages. Price, first and foremost, and a slightly better display resolution of 132 x 176 pixels — though it only supports 65K colors. The unit also has a 400mAh battery rated by Hyundai at 70 hours of standby and three hours of talk time. It will support voice, SMS, MMS, email, video playback and music playback, though its 128MB of internal memory will certainly limit the usefulness of any video and music capabilities. Finally, no 3G to be found unfortunately, though we’re not so sure it’s necessary just yet in a watch phone. Hyundai’s MB-910 will be released in the UK some time in Q2 and will run a respectable £200 ($277), including a Bluetooth headset.

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Well, watch phone fans… It was fun while it lasted. When we first caught wind of the LG Watch Phone, we laughed. When LG unveiled it, we were silenced. When Orange reportedly priced it late last week, we laughed again — and then cried. For the time being this is a rumor as Orange and LG have yet to confirm it, but word on the street is LG’s Watch Phone will be announced by Orange soon for a whopping £1,000 ($1,454) or £500 ($727) on contract with a monthly rate of £40 ($58) and up. Wow. The 3G is great, the UI is nice, the touchscreen is cool and the functionality is respectable but the price? No, no, no. That ugly little Phenom watch phone isn’t looking so bad anymore, is it?

Thanks, Danger!

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LG is full of surprises these days, even though we all knew this nifty little gadget was coming. When we first covered the LG wristwatch phone, it was all in good fun and humor. It turns out however, that LG’s Touch Watch Phone really is a cool little gadget. First off, it supports 3G, is Bluetooth capable, has a 1.4″ touch screen and it even sports a front-facing camera for video-conferencing. If you’re the type who doesn’t like admiring your own wrist for more than a few seconds, the Touch Watch Phone will also read text messages aloud – perfect while on the run or on the couch with your arm buried in a bag of potato chips. Pretty cool, right? We’re not sure if it supports speech-to-text, but we’ve got our fingers crossed since it will make entering data on Touch Watch Phone a breeze. No pricing or solid release date yet, but at least we all know it’s official now. Anyone going to pick one of these up and show it off?

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After all the buzz brought on yesterday by the announcement that LG will be showcasing a GSM watch phone at CES next week, another company with several similar products already available decided to feed off of the heat. Phenom (don’t worry, we’ve never heard of them either) offers a pretty wide selection of unlocked GSM watch phones and if that’s your thing you’ll also be happy to know they’re very affordable. With current promotions accounted for, Phenoms product range in price from $195 to $295 and include features such as video cameras, micoSD card slots and MP3/MP4 players. If you can work your way past the styling these could actually be pretty cool little toys. There are some questions we have however, and one is brought on by the image of the company’s flagship model, dubbed “Special Ops”, seen above. Despite the fact that an S60 watch phone would be pretty cool, we’re pretty positive that these little guys aren’t packing Symbian. Why then, are the screens of the watch above displaying a theme from popular Symbian themestress Babi? We love her themes as much as anyone else but I think she may find it interesting to learn that they’re watch phone-compatible. Oh, and we hope Phenom got permission to use those images…

[Via Unwired View]

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Grab your trenchcoat, fedora, and drum-fed machine gun because LG has cooked up the perfect watch to help you bust crime and keep in touch with those you need to be in touch with. One advantage you’ll have over Dick Tracy however, is that the LG-GD910 is a 3G enabled wristwatch phone and it has an MP3 player. The new watch/phone is also said to have text-to-speech capabilities (useful for such a gadget), voice dialing, Bluetooth and a front-facing camera for video conferencing. As with most nifty novelties, this will likely make its debut in Europe before it comes to the US (if it ever does). What do you all think – useful, or pointless?

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[via GearLog]

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How about a little old school flavor to help them with their next caper? Chinese manufacturer Shenzhen X.K.D Electron Co must have seen the future when they brought this little puppy back from the dead. The SL-083 looks like it hopped right out of the ’80s, but doesn’t that mean it’s cool? Compatible with a variety of popular brands such as Sony, Panasonic and Phillips, this geek badge lets you control your multimedia gear from up to 5 meters away. The IR transmittor also has 30° of forgiveness if for some reason you’re quickly making your way past the device you want to control. Functions include volume, channel, input and of course the only function that really matters, power on / off. With a price tag of $22, it’s almost worth buying just to buy.

[Via GeekAlerts]

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