The INQ Chat 3G is here at last, ready to show smartphones how to do social networking on a budget, armed with a QWERTY keyboard that’ll even have BlackBerry loving suits looking over your shoulder in envy. But can it match them for email flinging and Facebook on the move? Read on and find out in our full INQ Chat 3G review.
The INQ Chat 3G is the third phone from the social mobile startup, after the INQ1 and INQ Mini 3G, and its most promising yet. It’s still using the same Brew OS, and comes with Twitter updates flowing straight into your inbox like the Mini 3G. But this time, it’s spread out over a 2.4-inch screen, with a button for every letter to prevent predictive text faff. And there’s GPS included too, so you can fire up Google Maps, a feature we’d love to see made mandatory in all mobiles.
That keypad on the INQ Chat 3G is spacious and easy to use, the handset is thin and light, and the side button to bring up the menu for multitasking is easy to prod mid flow. As for the software itself, it works just as on the INQ Mini 3G. It’s colourful, with cheap looking low res fonts and slight lag, but some well implemented widgets. You can make Skype calls, and Twitter and Facebook messages come rolling in to your inbox next to your email. Each social media app is a cinch to setup: you just login and you can leave them on in the background.
Read our INQ Mini 3G review now
But what really makes the INQ Chat 3G tempting for social butterflies on a budget, over a BlackBerry Curve 8520, say, is the price. At just £99 on pay as you go, or free on a £15 per month contract with all you can eat internet, it’s very tempting if you don’t need all the productivity apps of RIM’s email machines.
There are some problems with the INQ Chat 3G: its 3.2MP camera goes toe to toe with most recent BlackBerry snappers, but the video recording is woeful and incredibly stuttery. And while INQ’s widget platform covers a lot of go to bases online, there are still a few glaring gaps: you can’t use Google Talk or Yahoo! for instant messaging, just Windows Live. There’s also no 3.5mm audio, just a mini USB port so you’ll have to use the cans you’re given or buy an adaptor to listen to music on a microSD card.
But our real gripe is with the network the INQ Chat 3G is on, Three. Testing out two different INQ Chat 3G handsets in London, our handset spent more than half the time on roaming, or with no signal whatsoever. The former is an issue when you drop onto GPRS, as Three is a 3G only network. That’s not the same across the country of course, but it’d be very wise to check how blanket-like Three’s coverage is near you before committing to anything: it could well be a dealbreaker.
But for next to nothing, the INQ Chat 3G mimics an impressive amount of all the features of a true smartphone. If you’ve got reception, you’d be mad to skip this for any Samsung or LG messaging dumbphone.
