After the iPhone was announced, lots of people from bloggers to reporters to analysts had a field day talking about how un-revolutionary it was. After all, there already was a touch-screen phone coming to market soon - the LG Prada phone, nee KE850 - which was just as cool-looking as the iPhone but noticeably slimmer. There was also another contender: a phone from an open-source mobile communication "movement" going by the name of OpenMoko. This phone, OpenMoko announced, would be manufactured by Taiwanese OEM-er FIC and marketed under the mystifying name Neo1973.

The three phones don't really have that much in common, when you look a little closer.

The Neo1973 is basically a smartphone developed by and for geeks (by which I mean no disrespect). You can tell this almost immediately. It's the name. The Neo1973? Huh? Does that mean it's some new take on something that was hip way back in the 1973 - the year Nixon accepted responsibility for Watergate, there was a (different) oil crisis going on, and The Godfather won the Oscar for best picture? Yeah, I know, it's probably just some random number dreamed up at FIC, or maybe not so random. Either way, it's a silly name. But that's how you know it's for geeks: It's obvious that no one at OpenMoko put up a fuss when FIC (or whoever) christened the phone.

But I digress. The OpenMoko phone offers many of the same features as the iPhone and Prada phone, namely the ability to read and send email and sync contacts and calendars. But it doesn't have a camera. It doesn't seem to play music or video (although it's not totally clear from the spec sheet provided by the company). Although it does have an interesting shape - kind of an elongated oval.

The point of the OpenMoko phone is that it's open. If a company needs to develop some kind of specialized app that all its mobile workers can access, no problem. If a Linux prodigy just wants to create a way to text message all his friends whenever he releases new code, he can do that too.

The FIC Neo1973 smartphone, powered by OpenMoko, would have been super groovy back in '73, especially next to an eight-track player.

To me, the OpenMoko phone seems like the polar opposite of the Prada phone, which has a lot of substance, but is mostly about style. (Not to mention that the substance comes at a HUGE price - 600 euros, which is almost a grand, and which is also beside the point since you can't buy it in the U.S. yet).

I don't know why, but the fact that it has Prada emblazoned on its face somehow lessens the impact of the price tag. But that is NOT to say I would pay that much for it if I lived in Europe or Asia. (Well, maybe I would. I'd be a totally different person if I'd been born and raised in Paris or Tokyo, wouldn't I?) At this point, the only indication of what the Prada phone can do is a video tour created by a fellow at Italy's Cellulare IT magazine and posted on YouTube.

The features demonstrated in the video include showing off the buttons and ports, the way you can set the alarm "to wake you up in the morning," the way the menus are divided, the soft number pad for making calls, creating a text message (which forces you to use an alphanumeric keypad rather than a full keyboard), and how to change the graphic "themes" for the phone. Using the "fish theme," when you press something on the keyboard, a tiny orange fish swims toward your finger, which seems super cool until you stop to think, "Who cares?"

The LG Prada phone is big on style, and it's fairly functional too.

It's not really fair to compare the Cellulare IT guy's first-look video tour of the Prada phone to Steve Jobs's demo of the iPhone at his Mac Expo keynote. But I can't help it. Steve's flashy keynote was not just flash: The features he demo'd were features that actually worked when we tried them in our too-short 30-minute hands-on demo with the phone the next day. For whatever reason, I found it hard to get excited about the functionality of the Prada phone, as shown in the YouTube video. Maybe I'd feel differently if Prada was a brand I felt some allegiance to. That's where Apple has a decided leg up over both phones, all functionality aside: Its branding is stronger (at least among people who care about gorgeous, easy-to-use tech) than Prada's and its reputation for ease of use might trump the whole open-source thing.

The OpenMoko FIC Neo1973 will be available in March or April worldwide for $350 U.S. The iPhone will be available in the U.S. in June for $499 (4GB) or $599 (8GB) with a two-year Cingular Wireless contract. The LG Prada phone is now available in Europe; it will be out in Asia in March.