(First Look) - LG has made the headlines recently after it announced its decision to release the Chocolate VX8500 cell phone to the North American market. While the concept of a hybrid (music player + cell phone) phone isn’t new, the Chocolate is one of the most attractive looking phones of its kind. Combine that with a fully functional music player with independent controls, and you have an all-in-one package.

The Chocolate VX8500 is equipped with Bluetooth for wireless connectivity, an integrated V CAST music and video service from Verizon, a 1.3-megapixel camera, a microSD memory slot for upgradeable memory, and touch sensitive navigational keys for ease of use and friendly user interface.

The music player comes with an preset equalizer, supports WMA and MP3 audio formats, is integrated with a speaker and a separate music key for easy access, playlist capabilities, music alarm, and a host of other features. The camera is fairly decent as well. You can take images in resolutions as low as 160x120 and as high as 1280x960, playback V CAST video files (MPEG4, 3GP, 3G2, H.264) at 15 fps, record video clips with up to 15 seconds of video in FLIX message mode and up to 1x hour in General mode. In addition, the camera has a self-timer of 3, 5 and 10 seconds and comes with customizable settings, such as brightness, white balance, shutter sound, color effects and night mode.

Other than audio, video and other multimedia options, the phone itself recognizes basic voice comments, such as call, send message to, go to, check, lookup and my account, does voice memo recording for 1 and 5 minutes in standby and call time modes, supports MP3 ringtones and is pre-equipped with 12 ringtones + vibrate and silent modes. It also does text messaging, web-based e-mail and browsing, obviously. Tools, such as alarm clock, world clock, notepad, calculator and others are also part of the standard package.

LG appears to have designed a beautiful phone for users who are interested in multitasking and multimedia features at the same time. While Palm’s Treo and RIM’s BlackBerry are designed for workaholics, LG’s Chocolate VX8500 is designed for those who prefer to have fun, while occasionally doing work related tasks. What’s more? For the price tag of $199 (for the phone) and $249 (with a 1-year contract), the deal is just too sweet to pass.