A decade ago Korean company LG was best known in the UK for rolling out competitively priced - but not very attractive - VCRs and TVs. Since the mid-90s though the company has re-invented itself, and now delivers products to rival those manufactured by its Japanese and European rivals.
Much of its transformation is down to the far-sightedness of its management team of a few years back, who gambled heavily on several emerging technologies and have seen a good return on their investment.
Today the company is among the world leaders in both plasma and LCD screens, is very strong in home entertainment systems and has pioneered the connected appliance market with devices like its internet fridge.
Now the company is hoping to repeat that success in a new market - mobile phones. Although it is a major player in Korea LG has up until now ignored the very competitive UK market. This is set to change with the arrival of a pair of new handsets, the first of which, the 7100, goes on sale this week exclusively through the Orange network, for around ￡240 with contract.
It is getting very crowded in the camera phone market with excellent models like the Sharp GX20 (available via Vodafone) soon to be joined by great-looking handsets including Samsung's E700 and Motorola's V600.
LG is, however, determined to stand out from the crowd. The small (89x46x24mm) clamshell 7100 not only sports a very usual design, but also is crammed with innovative features.
There's something very 1950s sci-fi in the handset's silver and black finish and odd-shaped protruding aerial. This is heightened by the large circular organic LED on the fascia - a first for a mobile phone - that delivers caller id, date/time, signal strength and battery power information. It can moonlight as mirror too.
Another first is the siting of the camera lens - not on the main handset - but on the side of a circular barrel at the top of the phone.
Flip the clamshell open and there's a small (2.8 x3.5cms,128x160 pixels) but reasonably bright screen 65k colour screen. It certainly isn't in the same league as the screen on Sharp's GX20. But, unusually, the screen can pivot through 270 degrees. So for example you could choose to have the main screen permanently on the front of the phone. The lower part of the clamshell features large-ish easy to use buttons that control an intuitive icon-based menu system.
In terms of features the 7100 has pretty much all you'd expect from a mid-range camera phone. There's a selection of three games (plus Java should you wish to download more from the Orange website), a melody ringtone composer, 32 polyphonic ringtones and voice recording and dialing. There's also easy access to Orange's ever-improving selection of Wap sites. And while there is a very basic organiser there is no Bluetooth.
LG has made a real effort with the phone's camera. It is the first camera phone to include an integrated flash (Siemens has a very good flash built into an external camera that accompanies several handsets in its range). There's also a zoom that magnifies up to 4 times and brightness options, and the phone takes image up to 640x480 resolution.
The images it snaps are on the whole of reasonable quality. While the flash improves shots in lower lighting it isn't really powerful enough to make much of a difference in - say - a very dark room.
Actually snapping the images is rather trying process. Adjusting the camera's parameters, to - say - switch the flash on or choose a higher resolution image is a painfully slow, as you are invariably looking at the icons at an odd angle. Getting the lens in the optimum position to take an image is also a trial. It is best to swivel the screen around so it is front on. Even then, lining up the image can take several seconds. The LG 7100 certainly isn't point and shoot.
Once you've snapped the image sending it is fairly simple and it can be whizzing away to another phone after just four clicks.
Battery life is reasonable with three hours talk time and eight days' standby.
If you can live with the awkwardness of the camera the 7100 is certainly worth considering. It has an interesting design - the organic LED screen on the front is a real talking point - and its selection of features is quite impressive.
I wouldn't swap it for my Sharp GX20 though, which clearly has the edge in terms of screen resolution and camera performance. But Orange customers with a taste for the quirky might find the 7100 a phone to cherish.