INQ Mobile's new phones: the INQ Chat 3G and INQ Mini.
(Credit: INQ Mobile)Cellphone maker INQ Mobile is launching two new low-cost cellphones optimized for social networking applications to give mobile subscribers alternatives to more expensive smartphones.
INQ, which is owned by Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa, launched its first low-cost, "smartphone-lite" device earlier this year. And now the company is expanding its portfolio with two new devices, one of which has a full QWERTY keypad.
The phones do not run full browsers and the operating system used on the device is Java-based and not nearly as sophisticated as smartphone operating systems used on devices such as the Apple iPhone or Research in Motion's BlackBerry.
But INQ has integrated many of the most popular Web services, such as Facebook and Twitter, onto their handsets to give consumers a smartphone-like experience at a much lower price point. And because the device is not considered a smartphone, subscribers can typically sign up for less expensive data plans using the INQ phones.
In addition to tight integration for one-click access to Facebook, Twitter, and other Web services like Skype, the new INQ devices can also sync with unprotected music stored in iTunes and Windows Media Player.
Just how cheap are the INQ phones? Well, if AT&T can sell the Apple iPhone for $99 with a two-year contract, INQ CEO Frank Meehan believes that U.S. operators could afford to offer the INQ mobile devices for anywhere between $25 and $50 with a two year wireless service contract. And in many cases operators could even offer the phones for free in exchange for a two-year service commitment.
The two new phones announced this week are the INQ Chat 3G phone, which has a full-QWERTY keypad and looks like a colorful BlackBerry, and the INQ Mini, which is shaped like a candy-bar and comes with a standard cell phone keypad. The devices are expected to go on sale in six countries on Hutchison's operator 3 later this year. These countries include the U.K., Ireland, Sweden, Italy, Australia, and Hong Kong.
The Mini, which will cost less than $150 without a carrier subsidy, will go on sale in September. And the INQ Chat 3G, which will retail for less than $200 without a carrier subsidy, will go on sale in October.
Meehan said the company is still working on a deal with a U.S. operator. But the phones could end up on this side of the Atlantic next year.
It's all in INQ Mobile's Twitter feed from Tuesday, and appropriately so: "Yes, you guessed it. A Twitter phone from us is imminent!"
The Twitter phone isn't expected to arrive until the holiday season, but here's the INQ1, or Facebook phone, shown at CES in January.
(Credit: Nicole Lee/CBS Interactive)The same U.K.-based cell phone maker that launched the Facebook and Skype phones will be introducing the Twitter phone--the latest in its line of "social networking phones"--by the end of the year.
"This can really help open up and drive Twitter use on mobile when usage becomes part of your data package like on the PC," INQ Chief Executive Frank Meehan told Reuters earlier Tuesday.
The device lets users tweet on the go without having to pay the high prices of smartphones like the iPhone and BlackBerry. According to Reuters, the Twitter phone will cost carriers less than $140.
The Facebook phone, officially called the INQ1, won a 2009 Global Mobile Award for best mobile handset. The INQ1 (CNET editors' take here) comes with Facebook, Skype, Yahoo, Google, eBay, and Windows Messenger built-in, and it also supports Java and BREW, so other applications like MySpace can be added.
Traffic for the INQ1, Reuters reports, is three to four times higher than other phones in its cell phone network, 3 UK. Since introducing its Skype phone in 2007, INQ mobile has sold 700,000 of their social-networking phones.
INQ Mobile and 3 UK are owned by the same umbrella company--Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa; INQ's phones have not yet been picked up by other cell phone carriers.
INQ claims to be the world's first real social mobile company
(Credit:
INQ Mobile)
The idea of a "social networking phone" seems redundant at first--don't all phones have an ability to connect to a social network of some kind? But INQ Mobile, a company based in the U.K., claims that it is the first to really bring social networks in the form of Facebook, MySpace, et al. to those of ...
Read the full post at CNET's CES 2009 blog.
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