The five coolest British made phones ever

Traditionally however in spite of having booming mobile industry and several very large networks – Vodafone leaps to mind – the British haven't been that great at making mobile phones. There has been the odd start up – and you will be blown away by the sheer ambition of some of the handsets – but in the main we have been happy to let the Scandinavians , Koreans, Japanese and more recently the Americans dictate what handset we buy.

INQ to launch Twitter phone for Christmas

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INQ Mobile is hoping to launch its Twitter phone in time for Christmas. How thoughtful. It’ll cost operators less than $140 and use an integrated internet-based Twitter client such that all tweets will come out of the user’s data package.

The low cost social networking handset manufacturer has made such a storming success of their first mobiles that only the iPhone can compare in terms of how often consumers have used them to go online. Sixty-five per cent of all INQ phone customers contact Facebook on a regular basis and 50% are the same with Windows Messenger.

It’s no surprise that INQ is looking to stay ahead of the pack and there’s no doubt that, right now, Twitter is the place to be. I wonder if it’ll be all blue bird and clouds branded?

New INQ phone will have Twitter built in

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The problem with building an entire device around one service is that when the service becomes obsolete, so does the device. Not that I’m saying Facebook, and therefore the INQ phone, is obsolete, but it’s important to keep things updated.

With that in mind, last night Electric Pig got a nugget of information out of INQ’s CEO, Frank Meehan, about the next device they’ll be releasing. When asked if Twitter would feature in the next INQ, Frank replied: “I think we’d be stupid if we didn’t”. So there you go.

(via Electric Pig)

More on the INQ: INQ1 heading to more networks | REVIEW: INQ1 Facebook phone from 3

SHINY VIDEO PREVIEW: 3's INQ1 Facebook phone

Woot! In between liveblogging the announcement from INQ, 3 and Facebook this morning, Zara managed to get her hands on the phone itself for a bit of alone-time. The result is the video above, where you can see the menu system and contact list in quite some detail. The problem is, now I want one even more.

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Related posts: 3’s “INQ1” Facebook phone details confirmed | 3 to release INQ handset with massive Facebook integration

3's "INQ1" Facebook phone details confirmed

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At a launch event this morning in Shoreditch, 3 unveiled its “INQ1” Facebook phone, which we wrote about just over a week ago. It’s basically a phone that has massive Facebook integration, as well as integration with Skype, Windows Live Messenger and Last.fm.

WIth more and more people using their phones for their social networking needs, 3 wanted a handset with that functionality at its very core. The device pushes Facebook news feed updates to the home screen of your phone, and the contact book is being described as ‘live’, where friends’ Facebook profile pictures show up next to their contact details…

3 to release INQ handset with massive Facebook integration

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Continuing in 3’s long tradition of trying to shake up the established phone industry, the network is planning to launch a new phone next week called INQ. It builds on the direction that the Skypephone started, and features very close integration with social-networking behemoth Facebook.

Although info about the phone has been floating around for a little while, we’ve got the official confirmation from 3 now, and they’re holding a press event next Thursday to announce the handset. It’s a not-particularly-pretty-looking slider phone, but where it really shines is in the software. Your Facebook contacts are your phonebook. Your SMS messages are Facebook messages. IM is handled over Facebook chat…