LG unveils 3G watch mobile phone for Europe

Why replace your watch with a phone when you can replace your phone with a watch? That's the idea behind the LG's long-anticipated, 3G-capable watch phone, set for release this year—but just in Europe, folks.

LG had an early prototype of the Touch Watch Phone (a.k.a., the LG-GD910) on display at last year's CES; but while the new model is apparently still in testing, it is indeed slated to go on sale "sometime" this year.

That’s the good news. The bad news? The LG-GD910 (no pricing details yet) is only going retail in Europe, leaving North American Dick Tracy fans in the lurch (well, for now at least).

That said, on with the details: LG crows that the 13.9mm-thick GD910 boasts a curved tempered glass face and "high quality" metal casing—so no, we're not talking a black plastic calculator watch with a zillion buttons.

The 1.43-inch touch display is icon-based and Flash-powered, and under the hood is quad-band GSM for world calling and 7.2Mbps HSDPA for—wait for it—video telephony over the built-in camera.

Other features: Voice commands, either with or without a Bluetooth headset; text-to-speech for reading text messages to you aloud; a music player (I'm guessing video wouldn't be too satisfying on the 1.43-inch screen), a built-in speaker, and stereo Bluetooth support.

OK, so LG's Touch Watch Phone doesn't sound terribly practical; still, I can't wait to get my hands (er, wrist) on it and try it on for size. Stay tuned for my hands-on impressions.