Available
now 10th February 2011
We haven't heard much from INQ Mobile recently, but there have
been rumours for a while that INQ was working with Facebook on a
mobile phone, and the upcoming INQ Cloud Touch is one of
a pair of handsets launched as a result of this, the other one being
the INQ Cloud Q.
The INQ Cloud Touch is an Android 2.2 smartphone with a 3.5"
480 x 320 pixel capacitive touchscreen display, 3.5G support and
WiFi, a 5 megapixel camera, 4GB of flash on a microSD card, GPS
and an FM radio. Inside is a usefully large 1300 mAh battery, the
Cloud Touch runs on a fairly modest 600 MHz Qualcomm processor.
It's clear from the hardware specifications that this isn't a
very high end device, but the software sets it apart from rival
handsets. The home screen is a Facebook feed which contains details
of friends updates and multimedia, plus the Cloud Touch supports
Facebook Places and Facebook Events, which it synchronises with
Google's own Android calendar function.
As
well as Facebook, the INQ Cloud Touch has a built-in Spotify client
with a dedicated Spotify key built in. And because this is an Android
2.2 smartphone, there are thousands of other applications that you
can download from the Android market, plus a full suite of Google
apps supplied as standard.
If you can't get enough of Facebook, then the INQ Cloud Touch
could well be for you. If you're not into Facebook.. well, it almost
definitely isn't. It's quite a good looking device which should
help sales, and we should expect that it will offer good value too.
INQ say that the Cloud Touch should be available during Q2 2011,
in the UK it will be available through Carphone Warehouse and Best
Buy stores. INQ is owned by Hutchison Whampoa, who also own the
3 network.. so it's a good bet that this will be available on 3
contract and pay-as-you-go. We don't know about the availability
of the Cloud Touch anywhere else though.
Android and Facebook are two of the hottest tech properties at
the moment, and combining them together looks like a compelling
idea. It is just possible that INQ might have a surprise hit on
their hands with this new approach.
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