LG Vantage 830 is now available for purchase in Canada, offered by Bell Mobility, the second largest operator in the North American country. News about the release of Vantage via Bell spread about a month ago, when a May 16 date was rumored, but the handsets only got to be launched now, at the beginning of June.

LG Vantage is a rare appearance in Bell's handset offering, as it's both fashionable and good-featured and, even more, it has a touchscreen display as well as an alphanumeric keypad. The phone comes in a slider form factor, it measures 102 x 52 x 15 millimeters (when closed) and it weighs 125 grams.

The list of specs LG Vantage comes with includes a 2.8 inch TFT touchscreen display with VibeTonz technology, 262K colors and a 240 x 400 pixel resolution, built-in GPS, CDMA200 EV-DO connectivity, a 2 Megapixel camera with self timer, multi-shots and video recording, stereo Bluetooth, Music player, "2-way speakerphone", Web and email capabilities, Windows Live messenger, English and French interface, Picture ID, plus expandable memory up to 4GB (a 512 memory card is already included).

The new Vantage is available from Bell in only one color version, and that's silver (click here for the web page presentation of the handset). Canadian customers who want to buy the phone have several options in terms of price: $199.95 with a contract agreement for three years, $274.95 with a contract for two years, and $374.95 with a 1-year contract. Or, if you don't want any contract, you can get the handset for $424.95, which might be a bit expensive for some users.

LG Vantage is the fifth LG handset from Bell's current line-up of phones, and also the most advanced and expensive. The other four Bell devices manufactured by the South Korean company are LG Chocolate, LG Muziq, the QWERTY LG Rumour and LG Shine.