At the flagship Birks Jewelry store in Toronto’s designer shopping strip on Bloor street this past Thursday, LG Canada unveiled their new stainless steel Shine cellphones amongst a mixture of red carpet, glittering diamonds, models, and fashion magazine editors assembled in their best black evening dresses. The highlight of the night was the showcase of a pair of Shine phones encrusted with over $30,000 in diamonds, considered to be the most expensive phones in Canada.

There was a Ducati parked on the red carpet and Birk’s entire staff of jewelry experts at the counters to allow attendees to try on and explore their designer bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and engagement bands. Hidden amongst the display cases were the LG Shine phones themselves. Although every major cell phone carrier will have the Shine, there are two main designs of the phone being offered.

There’s a flip version being offered through Telus and Bell and a slider version being offered by Rogers. Both are encased completely in stainless steel and bear a significant heft in terms of weight to them. They feel solid in your hands. Both have 2 Megapixel cameras, Bluetooth and MP3 players, but it’s the flip version that is the thinner of the two and has a Micro SD card slot for up to 4GB of extra memory.

The Slider version is unique in that it is a special edition created just for Rogers and the Canadian market. A well-kept secret in the cellphone industry here is that it’s not uncommon for cell phone manufacturers to make subtle changes in either a phone’s esthetics or its internal electronics, both to better tweak a handset’s ability to work on a Canadian carrier as well as to suit local consumer tastes. It might be something as simple as changing the incline of a keypad or the accent colour, to something as drastic as replacing the internal guts. One thing that is common is that cell phone manufacturers generally don’t advertise these changes.

With the Shine Slider, the differences are significant enough for LG to come right out and promote them. Not only have they replaced the entire guts of the phone in order to support Rogers’ Vision service (video calling is still unique in North America), but they have made two physical changes. The first is the addition of a second, video camera in the upper right-hand face of the phone. This is so you can make video calls to your friends with Rogers’ Vision service. The second is that they’ve replaced the standard rollerball on the front with a mechanical thumbstick. After doing some market research here, they’ve learned that we Canadians have trouble with the rollerball and our gloved fingers in winter. So for our snowy society, we get the thumbstick.

Fortunately for LG’s diamond-studded launch party, winter is still a few months away and as the fashion models hired to pose with the phones gathered on stage for the big reveal, there was a slight kerfuffle and one of their number became trapped at the back, hidden from the crowd. Pushed up against a side wall myself, I was the only person to see this and as she looked about a little embarrassed and not sure what to do, I waved to her, she waved back, and decided to hold up the phone up just for me and my camera. It was cute.

In addition to carrying the Shine phones, the models were also wearing pieces from Birk’s new CITIQUE series which includes earrings, a pendant, bracelet and ring all designed by Jose Hess with diamonds set in 18 carat white gold. As this was the first time these pieces had ever been put on display to the public (they will be on sale starting Nov. 1st), the launch was as much for the jewelry as it was the phones.

The showcase came to a spectacular end with the unveiling of two special edition, not-for-sale, diamond-encrusted versions of the Shine flip and slider phones. Decorated with over $30,000 in diamonds by Birks’ designers, the flip model comes with a charm decorated in diamonds while the slider model features the words “Born To Shine” spelled out in diamonds.

After the models had left the stage and the photographers had their fill of shooting the diamond-studded Shine phones, Birks encouraged the assembled women to head over to a photo shoot they had created where attendees could try on a diamond necklace worth $395,000 and then have their photo taken. A diamond watch was also provided for the men to model, but there were few takers.

Of course there was a huge line up for this and it lasted all night long. Every woman who stepped onto the stage with the diamonds around their neck instantly became the focus of photographer and videographer alike. I don’t know if the pictures and video will be sent out to them as souvenirs or if Birks will use them for promotional purposes, but for those stepping up, it was obviously fun either way.

What was fascinating to me was that every woman who participated knew exactly what pose she wanted to strike in front of the camera, there was no hesitation, no thought, no discussion or moments of preparation. As soon as the diamonds were on, they were in front of the camera with their faces turned, shoulders pivoted, and legs crossed instantly in a manner that they must have had planned for years and years and years. It occurred to me that most women today have it all figured out, mentally, how they would present themselves should they happen to be plucked out of the crowd for the spotlight, for the cover of a magazine or a billboard.

Tech Specs:

LG Shine Slide Phone (Rogers)

• RF band : 900 / 1800 / 1900MHz / UMTS, HSDPA (3.6Mbps)

• Stainless steel body

• 2.2” Wide mirror LCD, when idle the display is a mirror

• 2 Mega Pixel AF Flash / VGA camera for Video call

• Video can be filmed endlessly according to memory capacity

• PC Sync Download function

• MPEG4, H.263, AMR, VT support

• MP3 Player

• Joystick Controller

• HSDPA 3.6 High Speed Data Connectivity and Internet

• Bluetooth 1.2 (A2DP) • MMS, VOD, MOD

LG Shine Flip Phone (Telus/Bell)

• Stainless Steel Body

• 2.2” Wide LCD, when idle acts as a mirror

• 13.8mm Slim

• 2 Mega Pixel camera

• Auto Focus

• Colour Effects, Night Mode, Photometry features

• 2.2” QVGA, 262K TFT LCD for clearer and sharper pictures and videos

• Video can be filmed endlessly according to memory capacity

• PC Sync Download function

• MPEG4, H.263 support

• MP3 Player

• 4 GB External Memory capability (Micro SD)

• Ev-DO High Speed Data Connectivity and Internet

• WAP (2.0)

• Bluetooth (Ver. 1.2)

• Data/Fax (USB Port)