14 DAY TRIAL // LG's Black Label series of mobile phones seems determined to stay in the headlines this week, with more details on both the recently unveiled LG BL40 and with its “younger” brother LG BL42 making their way onto the web. The South Korean mobile phone maker already announced that it planned to release the new iteration of Chocolate in the wild as soon as August, and it seems that the company also intends to make the phone available globally, as the North American version of the BL40, supposedly the second Chocolate flavor, has just left the FCC labs.
The long handset comes to the market with a touchscreen display, in a candybar design, unlike the smaller LG BL42 that features a sliding form factor. The mobile phone has been spotted in some photos before, alongside the BL40, yet, this time, a series of images showing it alone are available in the wild. According to AllAboutPhones, which published the images, this should be the true successor of the original Chocolate device coming from LG Electronics.
Some more details on the handset have surfaced as well, including the fact that it comes with a non-touchscreen display that boasts a 240 x 320-pixel resolution, while also including backlit, touch-sensitive buttons and an alphanumeric keypad. At the same time, the upcoming phone is also reported to sport a 5-megapixel photo snapper, as well as a 3G UMTS high-speed data connectivity and a Java-based OS. No details on the availability or the pricing of the phone have been unveiled.
For what it's worth, the LG BL42 Chocolate (if proven to actually be the second Chocolate) should be a little cheaper than the touchscreen relative that went through FCC with 802.11b/g WiFi, a Bluetooth connectivity and an FM transmitter, as well as GSM 850/1900 and EDGE (no 3G, it seems). In addition, the phone is also expected to come with a 1000mAh Li-Ion battery. The handset has been reported to head towards Canada's Telus, though there are no official details on this.
Interestingly enough, it seems that the upcoming LG BL40 features support for AT&T's 3G bands, though LG states that it only supports GSM850 & GSM1900 (“The main chipset supports GSM850/GSM1900/UMTS850/UMTS1900,” the phone maker confirms). For the time being, these pieces of information seem to be rather confusing, yet we should probably wait for an official explanation to surface before making assumptions.
