Electronics, the second-largest mobile phone maker in Korea, announced that it will release the world's first transparent keypad-equipped mobile phone, dubbed "Crystal (LG-GD900)", starting next month, in 40 countries, including the regions of Europe and Asia.

Besides the main feature, a transparent keypad, the 3-inch LCD has adopted a full touch-screen phone offers the "Gesture Shortcut" function. With this shortcut, if users set "M" to music playing, users can play music by simply pressing "M" on the transparent keypad, regardless of which other icons are pushed. The transparent phone also features a "touch wheel", "writing recognition", and "vibration feedback."

The LG-GD900 adopts a 3D S-Class user interface, which is designed to enhance the advantages of the touch-screen and eliminate unnecessary menus and steps with a cube-based layout that provides four customizable home screens.

Other features include an 8-megapiexel camera, MP3 player, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and support for up to 32GB of external memory.

Nokia has announced that its 6700 handset will go on sale in the UK on Friday June 19, priced at £269 SIM-free.

It can be pre-ordered from the website today and will be available from all other operator and retail partners from Friday June 26.

The 6700 comes with a 5-megapixel camera, A-GPS navigation with Nokia Maps and high speed data access. Users can also share images and videos via Nokia’s service portal Ovi, as well as a number of other web services including Flickr and Facebook.