Welcome to May 2006, and LG has just changed the mobile design rules forever with the KG800, better known as the ‘Chocolate.’ This is the first device in their ‘Black Label’ series, and it is less of a telephone and more of a piece of minimalist art. When you take it out of the box—which, in a stroke of genius, actually smells like chocolate—you are greeted by a seamless slab of glossy, piano-black plastic. There are no visible buttons on the front, only a silver d-pad. It looks like a high-end MP3 player or a mysterious monolith from the future. It is currently the most fashionable phone in the UK, a must-have accessory for anyone who values aesthetics over almost everything else.nnThe technical ‘magic’ of the Chocolate is the capacitive touch-sensitive keys. When you slide the phone open, a set of glowing red icons ‘bleeds’ through the black plastic, appearing as if by sorcery. These are heat-sensitive controls that require only the lightest touch of a fingertip to navigate the menus. It is an incredibly sophisticated technical feat, though it does mean you’ll spend half your life wiping your own oily fingerprints off the glossy surface with your sleeve. The sliding mechanism itself is a ‘semi-automatic’ dream, gliding up with a dampened precision that rivals the Samsung D600.nnOn the specification front, the Chocolate is a solid, if slightly limited, performer. The screen is a 2.0-inch TFT display with 262,144 colours and a 176 x 220 resolution. It’s bright and clear, but the real star is the 1.3-megapixel camera with a built-in flash, hidden on the rear of the slider to protect the lens. It takes decent snaps for the era and can record basic video clips. However, the technical Achilles’ heel is the storage. The KG800 features 128MB of internal memory but has no expansion slot. For a phone marketed as a music player, this is a major technical constraint; you can fit a few dozen tracks on there, but you won’t be carrying your whole music library. It does, however, support A2DP Bluetooth, meaning you can listen to your tunes in stereo through wireless headphones—a very forward-thinking feature for mid-2006.nnThe user interface is a bespoke LG creation that matches the ‘minimalist’ vibe of the exterior, with simple black-and-white icons and a responsive feel. It’s not as deep as Nokia’s Symbian, but it’s fast and easy to master. Battery life is… well, it’s a ‘fashion’ phone. Between the glowing red touch-keys and the music player, the 800 mAh battery will likely need a daily charge if you’re actually using it. But in the world of the Chocolate, specs are secondary to the ‘vibe.’ It is a gorgeous, tactile, and highly unique handset that proved LG could be a world leader in design. It’s the phone that made ‘touch’ cool before the iPhone even existed, and it remains one of the most iconic pieces of mobile history to ever hit the British high street.