The rumours are now fact, and the Facebook phone is well and truly official – 3’s social networking bargain-phone is here! We’ve manhandled it and put INQ’s new social integration to the test. Come and take a peek!
The handset itself feels solid, although there’s little special about the design. This is a standard issue slider, with a 3.2 megapixel camera and not much else to shout about. Sure, it’s 3G and boasts HSDPA, but it’s the software inside that’s really special.
The INQ1 takes Facebook further than any phone before, even the iPhone. Its app is a proper offline version, so you can tap out messages to friends and even write on their wall when the phone lacks a signal. Those updates will then sync as soon as you get back online.
Likewise, the deep-level integration of social networking makes this a dream for those with friends all over the place. Contacts are automatically merged with Facebook profiles, Skype IDs and even Flickr accounts. Dive into one of your mates’ entries and you’ll see their current status, whether they’re available for a Skype call, and any updates to their photos or RSS feeds.
Take a look at the photo gallery below for a better idea of how the handset works in practice.
TBC | From £free | 3
So the phone has a fantastic social media application built into it. But the phone itself is just ho hum when it comes to technology features. Instead of facebook wasting time on the device maybe they should focus their energy’s on improving the applications they already have published on other phones?
this One is far behind a hacked iPhone that has Fring running on 3G (I’m mean, for calling also)
I have a INQ1 and, so far, it’s proved to be pretty damn good. Ok, no GPS and I’d prefer to have an 8 megapixel camera like the N96 but you know what? It’s a really good phone. The Facebook integration does put pokes and suchlike into a single unified inbox but one thing missing from the review is the fact it also does GMail as push email and has a fully integrated Skype package too which was one of the main reasons I went for it. 3 have it on some kind of special deal at the moment which made it the cheapest deal with the best options I could find. All in all – a nice package. Don’t think of it in terms of “how does it compare to an iPhone” – that’s like comparing chalk with cheese. iPhone is lovely but you pay for what you get. A good alternative might be the T-mobile G1 but I swapped from them because their tariff turned out to be horrendously expensive in practice.