Yet another midrange phone joins LG’s Cookie range

The Cookie range is proving a midmarket hit for LG, and the vendor has added yet another model, the Cookie Fresh (aka GS290). This will ship later this month in Europe, (UK, France and Italy first) priced at £100 in the UK on pay-as-you-go deals (carriers to be announced).

The Fresh follows hard on the heels of the Cookie Plus, unveiled last month, and joins the rising tide of budget smartphones on the market, offering functionality such as downloadable apps that were once confined to handsets with larger price tags. Like most gadgets in this class, it has a heavy emphasis on social networking.

The Fresh comes with 3-inch touchscreen WQVGA display and 2-megapixel camera plus 3.5mm headphone socket, FM radio, email capability and built-in social applications such as Facebook and Twitter. It is 2G-only at this point, unlike the more highly spec’d Plus. Its most distinctive feature is a new user interface based on cartoons and it will come in a choice of colors for different cellcos - aqua blue, purple, light silver and black.

The Cookie range, which will have as many as six models by year end, is all about mass volumes for LG, and the Fresh will be shipped in 50 countries by midyear, mainly as a prepaid handset.

The original KP500 Cookie has been selling well, marketed as the most affordable full touchscreen handset. It is available free with contracts of about £20 to £30 a month at all the UK carriers.

As well as Cookie Plus, we will soon see another lower end model, the GT350. This will be a follow-on for LG’s messaging phone, KS360, which has sold 5m units in four years. The Cookie brand will gradually infiltrate much of the vendor’s midrange, replacing the confusing number of current brands. The GT350 will have slide-out full Qwerty keyboard, though with a four-line rather than three-line layout. It also promises a 3-inch WQVA touchscreen display and a dedicated homescreen that can be set up to show social activity, plus four dedicated buttons below the screen providing instant access to email, social networking, instant messaging and browser.