last100 » INQ Mobile

Hands-on review: 3’s INQ Chat 3G – Twitter, Facebook, Skype and more

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:20:29 +0000

Back in August, I was pretty bullish when Hutchison-owned INQ announced the INQ Chat 3G, a follow-up to the INQ1, the company’s so-called Facebook phone.

The updated device adopts a BlackBerry-esque form-factor in favor of the INQ1’s candybar, adding a full QWERTY keyboard to support a host of social messaging capabilities, including ‘push’ email (via Gmail), Facebook access, Instant Messaging through Windows Live Messenger, Skype, and a Twitter client that provides ‘always-on’ connectivity to the micro-messaging social network so that updates are pushed ’straight to the homescreen’.

That’s a lot of functionality for a fairly low-cost device – it retails for £99 on a pre-pay (PAYG) tariff on 3UK – leading me to describe the INQ Chat 3G as taking aim at overpriced QWERTY touting smartphones.

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago, however, that I actually got my hands on the phone. Read on for my thoughts…

Hardware

The INQ Chat 3G looks better in real life than the pictures do justice. Despite being (mostly) plastic, the phone has a glossy look to it and the silver trim down the side, along with the metallic painted back cover, adds a certain amount of style. And while nobody would likely buy the Chat 3G based on looks alone, I actually prefer it to some of the lower end BlackBerrys.

The screen is reasonably bright too, and the navigation pad is nice and large, as is the surrounding function buttons. But with regards to hardware, it’s the keyboard which sets it apart from its predecessor.

And it’s pretty good.

There’s plenty of travel and prominence to each key, and a definite click too. The phone’s software offers auto-suggestions in the form of a popup menu, and I found that with very little practice my typing speeds were on-par with similar portrait QWERTY phones, though not quite as fast as using Nokia’s E71/E72.

On the downside, the space bar feels a lot stiffer than the other keys, although this may wear in over time, and I would have liked a dedicated @ key. That said, a long press and hold negates the need to use function to bring up symbols etc.

Overall, I could certainly live with the INQ Chat 3G’s keyboard on a daily basis, which is saying something.

Like the original INQ1, the Chat 3G’s 3.1 MP camera is nothing to write home about, it’s only really good enough for the most throw away use. Which, once again, is a shame considering how the phone integrates with Facebook, making sharing photos on the social networking site a breeze.

There’s 3G (HSDPA 3.6 Mbp) but no WiFi, understandable considering the phone’s price point. There’s also charging and mass storage mode via miniUSB, and a microSD card slot. Oh and GPS too.

It’s also worth mentioning that battery life is much improved over the INQ1. With push email, a few calls, light surfing, and a healthy sprinkling of Facebook/Twitter, you should be good for at least a full day, if not a little more.

Software

Once again, it’s the software where INQ hopes to distinguish itself from competing phones sold at similar or slightly higher price points. And coupled with 3’s support for Skype, for example, the proposition is pretty compelling.

The UI is the same found on the INQ1, with the phone’s homescreen containing live widgets (weather, RSS feeds, Twitter etc.), along with a carousel of app short cuts, not dissimilar to Mac OSX’s dock.

New to the table however, is INQs Twitter app.

It’s fair to say that the app itself is really nicely designed. As well as updating your Twitter status, along with viewing the updates of those you’re following, there’s support for @ replies and Direct Messaging. The latter are also pushed to the homescreen, just like an SMS, which proved really useful.

So far so good.

But this is where things go a little downhill.

After launching Twitter, the INQ Chat 3G routinely froze while downloading the updates of the 300 or so people I follow. Sometimes this would be for a minute or two and then normal use could resume, and other times the phone would actually reboot. It’s quite a serious issue that INQ needs to address as soon as possible in a firmware update, as a quick google suggests the problem isn’t unique. It’s a real shame because, as I said, the app itself, when working, is great.

The second app I put through its paces was push email using my Gmail account. This was very easy to set up, requiring just a user name and password and I was good to go. There are also options for other common email providers, such as Hotmail, Yahoo etc.

Next up, Facebook.

While the Facebook app is quite basic, often sending you off to the mobile website version, the address book integration we first saw in the INQ1 is really neat. It’s a feature that used to set INQ apart from most of the competition, but is now offered in some form by almost every other handset maker – Palm Synergy, HTC Sense etc. – and a number of carriers (Vodafone 360). INQ’s implementation still works well, enabling you to merge contacts that crop up in both Facebook and the phone’s address book/SIM card (and MSN, Skype – see below), although this has to be done manually. A degree of automation would save quite a bit of time setting up the Chat 3G’s social address book, but as this only really needs to be done once, it’s no deal breaker.

Skype was next.

Again the client is really well designed, integrating with the phone’s address book, including the ability to merge duplicate contacts across the various other services that the Chat 3G supports. There’s IM and calling, including SkypeOut for international calls – thanks to 3 – and both worked as you’d expect. Call quality wasn’t great, however, but easily passable for social calls.

Finally, I tried browsing the web. And while full web pages rendered well, the experience was painstakingly slow. An alternative is to install Opera Mini, which I’m told works better.

Verdict

On paper, there’s a tremendous amount of value packed into the INQ Chat 3G and for the most common apps and social web services, the phone has you covered. The built-in apps replicate almost exactly how I’ve set up my day-to-day and much more expensive smartphone, Twitter, push email, Facebook, Skype etc., and in that sense, the Chat 3G fulfills its mission: bringing a social messaging QWERTY phone to the mass market.

But, and it’s a big but, the Chat 3G often seems to be trying to punch a little bit too much above its weight.

In places – particularly, Twitter and web browsing – it feels like the processing power can’t quite keep up with the phone’s software ambitions. Freezes and a general sluggishness let down an otherwise smart feature set and User Experience.

Whether or not this can be improved through a firmware update, only time will tell.

---
Related Articles at last100:

INQ’s mass market ‘Twitter phone’ takes aim at overpriced QWERTY touting smartphones

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 04:10:00 +0000

I pretty much had this one pegged. Hutchison-owned INQ have announced the follow up to the award winning INQ1 — dubbed the Facebook phone — with a QWERTY-touting handset that, amongst other things, targets users of Twitter.

The BlackBerry-esque device, called the INQ Chat 3G, pitches a host of messaging capabilities to end users, including ‘push’ email (via Gmail), Facebook access, Instant Messaging through Windows Live Messenger, Skype, and a Twitter client that provides ‘always-on’ connectivity to the micro-messaging social network so that updates are pushed ’straight to the homescreen’.

“Consumers can send tweets and retweet via the internet rather than using SMS”, boasts the press release.

Once again the pitch to carriers is that the low-cost device will help drive up data usage for users who wouldn’t otherwise purchase a more expensive smartphone.

“We build phones that focus specifically on what people want to do most on mobile, and deliver it at a price point that’s easy for consumers and profitable for operators”, said Frank Meehan, INQ’s CEO, in a canned statement. “We have completely broken the vice grip hold that high end smartphones had on great mobile internet experiences, and made them available to everybody.”

On the choice of a QWERTY keyboard, Meehan adds:

“With the INQ Chat 3G, we’ve reinvented the qwerty for consumers by creating a fantastic social mobile. With the INQ1, we were blown away by how much consumers were writing just using the standard 12 keys – 30% of them were regularly sending emails. So we know that a keypad will go down a storm.”

The company’s hyperbole aside, I think Meehan could be right on the money. The INQ Chat 3G, even if it’s only offered on carrier 3, another Hutchison subsidiary, will sell very well. It addresses two demands: A low cost QWERTY device. And one that offers the key applications of Facebook, Twitter, IM, Skype and push email. It may not have ‘an app for everything’ like the much more expensive iPhone, but in providing those five app/features alone, the Chat 3G has the main bases covered, and at a fraction of the cost. It’s also a pretty slick looking phone too.

Price-wise, beyond low cost, INQ isn’t saying yet, although it’s worth noting that the device also features GPS and 3,2 megapixel camera (but still no WiFi), so it’s likely to work out more expensive than the original INQ1 released late last year.

Oh and the INQ Chat 3G has another trick up its sleeve – iTunes syncing on a Mac and PC. Interestingly, this comes courtesy of DVD Jon’s DoubleTwist software not an official Apple partnership.

On the same day, INQ also announced a new candy bar ’social mobile’ dubbed the INQ Mini 3G.

---
Related Articles at last100:

INQ working on a mass market ‘Twitter phone’

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:35:08 +0000

Hutchison-owned INQ, makers of the Skype phone and INQ1 – dubbed the Facebook phone – is said to be targeting Twitter next, according to a Reuters report. That’s hardly surprising considering the rise in popularity of the ‘micro-blogging’ site and the large amount of media attention the service has garnered here in the UK, one of the primary markets for the INQ1 via mobile network “3″, which is also a subsidiary of Hutchison.

“This can really help open up and drive Twitter use on mobile when usage becomes part of your data package like on the PC”, Frank Meehan chief executive of INQ tells the news service. One again the proposition to carriers is that a low cost ‘Twitter phone’ would help to drive data usage and retention amongst mass consumers not just those who can afford a traditional ’smart phone’.

On that note, Marc Allera, director of sales and marketing at 3 UK, tells Reuters that the data usage via social networking services for customers of the INQ1 is three to four times higher than from other phones and is likely on par with Apple’s iPhone, a considerably more expensive device. Sixty five percent of INQ1 users are said to be using Facebook on a regular basis and fifty percent using Windows Live Messenger: “On usual smartphones the Internet experience is in no way close and their price is 3-4 times higher.” Again, I’m not too surprised.

In my recent review of the INQ1 I concluded by saying:

I don’t have any stats to prove it, but I’ve long believed that 90% of mobile phone owners probably only use about 10% of the device’s features. That’s unlikely to be the case with the INQ1, which not only concentrates on three of the most popular web services – Facebook, Skype and Windows Live Messenger – but integrates them in a very practical and intuitive way.

Whether or not Twitter alone warrants its own handset is another matter, and I suspect that any new divice will incorporate additional social networks and other web services as is the case on the existing INQ1, and instead will be largely differentiated by marketing alone and, perhaps, a different form factor. A QWERTY keyboard would be a welcome addition to a INQ Twitter phone, although perhaps I’m just old school. Kids around these parts don’t seem to have any problems conversing via T9 on a traditional number pad.

---
Related Articles at last100:

Forget iPhone or GPhone, 3 to debut “Facebook phone” next week

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:09:22 +0000

Just don’t call it the F-phone

A new low cost cellphone that puts Facebook and other social applications at its center will debut next week on Hutchinson-owned 3 in the UK and Australia, according to Unstrung. The new handset has been designed by another Hutchinson subsidiary, INQ Mobile, and is the first of a number of “low cost social mobile” offerings in the pipeline.

Apart from a dedicated Facebook client the device will also include applications for Skype, email and IM.

INQ Mobile’s CEO, Frank Meehan, told Unstrung that the company’s goal is to build cheaper 3G phones — two to three times less that the average smartphone — in order to persuade more consumers to start using mobile data.

“For 85 percent of our customers, we can’t really sell more than voice and text,” he says. “You need to drive data usage higher right across all the handset segments. You want the majority of customers, not the top-end of the community that rules strategy at the moment.”

Meehan says that with regards to Facebook integration, INQ worked closely with the social networking company in order to offer better integration than is available on existing handsets. Unlike the iPhone, for example, INQ’s Facebook application runs in the background so that users can automatically receive updates from their Facebook friends. “So Facebook becomes like SMS and can be used in the same way as SMS,” says Meehan.

Interestingly, before heading up INQ, Meehan was involved in the development of the first dedicated Skype mobile phone, also sold through 3, which we enthusiastically reported on just over a year ago.

---
Related Articles at last100: