Orange promises to deliver LG's watch phone, likely this year

When Betanews took a closer look at LG's watch phone at CES in January, the only thing separating these quasi-sci-fi devices from reality was a mobile carrier willing to bless them with subsidies.

Today, France's Orange announced that it will be the first mobile operator to bring the watch phone to market.

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, Orange proudly announced that it would be carrying the LG G910, but did not go into detail about when it would be made available. Prior to the announcement, however, LG told us these devices would be coming to European markets in the second half of 2009.

The 1.43-inch touch screen watch offers HSDPA connectivity with Web browsing and media playing functions, but remains mostly a voice communications device due to its restrictive form factor.

As a concept that has existed in popular culture for nearly 70 years, LG's watch phone will not be the first of its ilk, nor will it be the only touch screen watch phone in the market this year.

But with its elegant design, and the high-profile manufacturer/carrier combination, LG's device will be the most widely accessible deployment of the watch form factor in Europe thus far.