New INQ Social Networking Mobile Phones Announced
Written by Christian Milsom on August 4, 2009 · Filed under Tech
If you have a particularly good memory you will remember the INQ1 – “The Facebook Phone” which when release back in early December promised to set the world alight with its advanced Facebook connectivity and thus appeal to the younger social-network aware generation. I even said it could possibly challenge the iPhone due to this and it’s additional lower cost advantage if it took off…well…it didn’t (besides from winning handset of the year at the Mobile World Congress), and you would be excused to think the brand had retreated to the pages of history.
New INQ “Social Networking” Handsets
But a year on and they’re back with two new phones which aim to break into the top the market in a fashion that their predecessor failed to achieve: the INQ Chat 3G and the INQ Mini 3G, both of which aim to build on the social-network based low cost foundation that the INQ1 laid out.
Despite their similar names they are in fact very different – the INQ Chat being more of a ‘smartphone’ in appearance with its QWERTY keyboard (responding to ‘consumer calls’ for one and increased email usability) whilst the INQ Mini resembles the more ‘classic’ form factor…
That is not to say that there aren’t similarities, the most obvious ones being that they both offer 3G capabilities and good social-network access (including, of course, Twitter), but that isn’t it – you can also use both as HSDPA modems, both have media syncing with PC’s (and Macs), both have applications that are updated ‘over the air’ and finally both have backs that can be customised in 7 different colours.
INQ Chat Features
So, the specs, and let’s look at the INQ Chat first: as I said before this was designed more for the kind of person that extensively uses email and as such it incorporates push GMail as well as an expanded suite of INQ social applications (Facebook, Twitter, Skype, IM etc.) the first two of which you can push updates to direct from the home screen.
With regards to the actual phone it comes in a very nice looking form with a 2.4” TFT display, 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, built in GPS, and an active address book. Unfortunately it only comes with 120MB of memory space, but that is upgradeable to 8GB (although no news as to how that is done).
INQ Mini Features
The INQ Mini is, as you would expect from a name like that, significantly smaller than the Chat but nonetheless resembles it in style (which as it turns out is a good thing as they both look pretty nice). Also as you would expect it’s slightly lower spec with a 2.2” screen, 100MB for memory and only a 2 megapixel camera; presumably this will be reflected in the price!
Summary
On the subject of which, that is one of the things that gave the INQ1 a real advantage (it was released at £80 and now retails on pay as you go at £60) and if the understandably excited press release is anything to go by that will be replicated – there is constant mention of its low price (although unfortunately there are no figures at this point).
So, it looks like a good couple of phones from INQ, and although the INQ was a quality product hopefully they can improve on its generally poor commercial acceptance. Expect to see these two in your stores sometime in Q4, and price dependant I imagine they may well prove very popular.
What do you think? Will these new social networking mobile phones be more popular than the original INQ “Facebook Phone”?
Via – INQ
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