The Best Looking Handsets

In the early years of mobile telephony, handset manufacturers were clambering over each other to load on as much technology as possible. Handset design was generally 'functional' to say the least, which lead to phones like my old favourite, the Motorola Graphite. Mmmm... retro.

Nokia were the first to really crack the concept that a cute-looking mobile with features such as snake and an genuinely intuitive menu system - pictures, anyone?

Nowadays, ugly handsets are the exception rather than the rule. True beauty, on the other hand, is rare. I have recently highlighted the Apple and Prada phones: two shining (and shiny) examples of handsome handsets.

Here are a couple of other lookers currently doing the rounds.

So stylish it can only be carried in £1000+ handbags by supermodels, the LG Chocolate Black Label is half 2001 A Space Oddessy and half the way Silk Cut adverts used to look before those meanies banned fun ads from telly. LG's populist Chocolate is a big seller and a particularly handsome handset. The Black Label editions are something a little special to look at. The pictured handset is a Black Label Platinum, which glows with sexy red buttons when it gets the signal or you touch it right. Phwoar.

Nokia have come up with this little beauty. While the original 8800 was a handsome, high end handset, it was rather limited by its terrible battery life. It was similar to a Lambourghini Diablo if you like - more status symbol than practical tool. The Sirocco edition, on the other hand, is more Audi S6 - stylish and powerful. The steel slider is a beauty when closed up, which wouldn't look at all out of place on the passenger seat of a supercar as it whipped along the Monte Carlo coastline to the casino.