onionbagblog
Twitter not INQ-luded
Also putting me off forking out for an iPhone is the camera and iPod player within. These are the two components that I won't compromise on. My current camera equipment is fine, and my 160Gig iPod p****s all over the pithy 16Gig on the iPhone.
Which makes the INQ1 incredibly tempting, and a possible happy medium for my mobile needs. All the INQ1 needed to do was to pass the onionbagblog test of playing, prodding and poking. Plenty of poking as it turns out, what with the INQ1 having already picked up the nom de plume of the Facebook Phone.
I fired up the INQ1 for the first time and the rather garish on screen colour design suggests that I skipped a generation (or two) in the INQ1 demographic. It's very much branded with Yoof in mind, and I no longer have the mind of a Yoof. The opening screen welcome is like an outtake from The Word, sometime around '93. No worries - you can lose the laser show effect and replace it with an iPhone lite sleek little black layout.
I picked up a strong 3G signal from SW8, which given my past history with the 3 network, came as something of a pleasant surprise. The signal has held its strength throughout the first week and the speeds are good. Which is all rather encouraging as I intend to use the INQ1 to tether my Asus, a feature that the iPhone is surprisingly unable to offer.
Navigation is all activated via aMac dock carousel positioned at the base of the screen. You flick through the various embedded apps, or you can add or delete new apps to suit your needs.
Sounds smooth enough, but the keypad is so compact that unless you've got the fingerprints of a five year-old, you'll be straying occasionally from your intended location and end up somewhere completely different instead. Having a touch screen on the iPhone is of course the solution, but then Apple's hardware costs four times the PAYG retail price of £80 for the INQ1.
The keyboard commands are fine, although it took me an age to find the backspace / delete button. Being marketed at Yoof, the INQ1 comes packaged with fact sheets rather than an instruction manual. It's very much feel your way around, as most things with Yoof probably are. This less is more attitude is perfect for a product like the flip; I require a little more information for a mobile phone. A full manual is available to download as a PDF for old fogies like me.
And so what of the user functionality? There's no getting around this: The INQ1 is a Facebook heavy phone. The whole handset is built around Facebook, so much so that upon first logging in, your entire Facebook friends contact list is imported as your phone address book. Ah great - all those online loons that I somehow picked up via Facebook sometime ago are now stored on my most intimate of inanimate objects.
3 is promoting this feature as one of the main strengths of the INQ1. The idea is to bring together your FB, MSN, Skype and phone contacts in one handy location. You can also merge the same user across different platforms. I can see the logic behind this, but I tend to visualise my various contacts depending on what platform I use to contact them. Seeing the playlists from my friends using last.fm was rather fab, although it left me feeling like a stalker, and a guilty one, given the crap music that most of my last.fm friends listen to.
It makes sense right now for a social media phone to get into bed with Facebook. Five years old and the site is mainstream. But what about Twitter, which has grown at a phenomenal pace in recent weeks?
You can access Twitter online via the browser, but that's soon going to eat into your 1GB per month data allowance. A backdoor solution is to use Twitter4Skype to stay in touch with the Twitterati. Alternatively you can install snaptu, which has a Twitter app bundled within. It's a neat little workaround, but the lack of any in-built Twitter support from the INQ1 is a major disappointment. The INQ2 is already rumoured to be in production, switching from Facebook to Twitter as the preferred flagship application.
Being a self-styled social media phone, Skype is also being used as a selling point for the INQ1. My work Skype account details connected instantly, and a quick dial up of the Skype test call showed that I was connected and all set for VOIP to go.
Setting up my Gmail and Hotmail accounts was simple, with up to seven multiple accounts being supported. Mail was pushed through to the INQ1 almost instantly, making it a great solution for my mobile email needs.
The default browser that comes bundled with the BREW OS does the job, but there's no harm in downloading the excellent Opera Mini. The INQ1 supports Java, so you can add pretty much what you like to the carousel.
I mainly use Messenger for work, but once again, the sign in process was simple. Elsewhere and other bundled apps include bebo, youtube, eBay etc, as well as enough widgets to keep your average geek happy for the tube journey home. The RSS stream is wonderful, enabling you to set up feeds, and then import these into the carousel.
Sound quality on the INQ1 is OK, but then seeing as though I'm not going to use it as a portable mp3 player, this doesn't really matter. Having the speaker and mic positioned where you usually hold a hand piece isn't the greatest of design feats. I can put up with a muffled ring tone, but it took me some time to work out why any video I was shooting came with what sounded like an underwater soundtrack.
The ring tone selection is poor - this is a plus point! Being a social media savvy style phone, I'm assuming that the bright young things of Shoreditch are expected to be installing their own bangin' choons as their choice of ring tone. I was satisfied with the default setting.
Other weaknesses include a poor 3.2 megapixel camera - but then I don't want my phone to take photographs. Messenger also has a habit of crashing the system, but I can live without constant pings from people. This is a trial phone remember. Early release software glitches are frustrating, but to be expected.
Battery life is a bit weak, but then if you're firing up browsers, using IM's and twittering all the time, then it's bound to be a drain on resources.
Having lived with the INQ1 for almost a week now, my mind is pretty much made up to keep the model after the trial period and take out a contract. The 1GB data allowance, inclusive of using the handset as a tether, has to be worth it for the £15 a month deal that 3 is offering with a free handset. I'm currently paying £10 a month locked into a dodgy dongle deal. Twitter (via snaptu) and mobile email access is an added bonus for me with the INQ1.
In summary, the INQ1 is indeed an iPhone lite, with a highly competitive pricing structure to match the more than sufficient functionality. It's already changed the way I go about tweeting / blogging, and it's given me plenty of ideas as to how to achieve future projects online.
Here's the basic tech spec:
2.2" QVGA screen, HSDPA connectivity, 3.2MP camera, microSD expansion slot to augment just 50MB of internal memory, dimensions of 97 x 47.6 x 14.4mm and a weight of 110g.
technorati: INQ1
reply via twitter
| Tuesday 10 February, 2009 |
Also putting me off forking out for an iPhone is the camera and iPod player within. These are the two components that I won't compromise on. My current camera equipment is fine, and my 160Gig iPod p****s all over the pithy 16Gig on the iPhone.
Which makes the INQ1 incredibly tempting, and a possible happy medium for my mobile needs. All the INQ1 needed to do was to pass the onionbagblog test of playing, prodding and poking. Plenty of poking as it turns out, what with the INQ1 having already picked up the nom de plume of the Facebook Phone.
I fired up the INQ1 for the first time and the rather garish on screen colour design suggests that I skipped a generation (or two) in the INQ1 demographic. It's very much branded with Yoof in mind, and I no longer have the mind of a Yoof. The opening screen welcome is like an outtake from The Word, sometime around '93. No worries - you can lose the laser show effect and replace it with an iPhone lite sleek little black layout.
I picked up a strong 3G signal from SW8, which given my past history with the 3 network, came as something of a pleasant surprise. The signal has held its strength throughout the first week and the speeds are good. Which is all rather encouraging as I intend to use the INQ1 to tether my Asus, a feature that the iPhone is surprisingly unable to offer.
Navigation is all activated via a
Sounds smooth enough, but the keypad is so compact that unless you've got the fingerprints of a five year-old, you'll be straying occasionally from your intended location and end up somewhere completely different instead. Having a touch screen on the iPhone is of course the solution, but then Apple's hardware costs four times the PAYG retail price of £80 for the INQ1.
The keyboard commands are fine, although it took me an age to find the backspace / delete button. Being marketed at Yoof, the INQ1 comes packaged with fact sheets rather than an instruction manual. It's very much feel your way around, as most things with Yoof probably are. This less is more attitude is perfect for a product like the flip; I require a little more information for a mobile phone. A full manual is available to download as a PDF for old fogies like me.
And so what of the user functionality? There's no getting around this: The INQ1 is a Facebook heavy phone. The whole handset is built around Facebook, so much so that upon first logging in, your entire Facebook friends contact list is imported as your phone address book. Ah great - all those online loons that I somehow picked up via Facebook sometime ago are now stored on my most intimate of inanimate objects.
3 is promoting this feature as one of the main strengths of the INQ1. The idea is to bring together your FB, MSN, Skype and phone contacts in one handy location. You can also merge the same user across different platforms. I can see the logic behind this, but I tend to visualise my various contacts depending on what platform I use to contact them. Seeing the playlists from my friends using last.fm was rather fab, although it left me feeling like a stalker, and a guilty one, given the crap music that most of my last.fm friends listen to.
It makes sense right now for a social media phone to get into bed with Facebook. Five years old and the site is mainstream. But what about Twitter, which has grown at a phenomenal pace in recent weeks?
You can access Twitter online via the browser, but that's soon going to eat into your 1GB per month data allowance. A backdoor solution is to use Twitter4Skype to stay in touch with the Twitterati. Alternatively you can install snaptu, which has a Twitter app bundled within. It's a neat little workaround, but the lack of any in-built Twitter support from the INQ1 is a major disappointment. The INQ2 is already rumoured to be in production, switching from Facebook to Twitter as the preferred flagship application.
Being a self-styled social media phone, Skype is also being used as a selling point for the INQ1. My work Skype account details connected instantly, and a quick dial up of the Skype test call showed that I was connected and all set for VOIP to go.
Setting up my Gmail and Hotmail accounts was simple, with up to seven multiple accounts being supported. Mail was pushed through to the INQ1 almost instantly, making it a great solution for my mobile email needs.
The default browser that comes bundled with the BREW OS does the job, but there's no harm in downloading the excellent Opera Mini. The INQ1 supports Java, so you can add pretty much what you like to the carousel.
I mainly use Messenger for work, but once again, the sign in process was simple. Elsewhere and other bundled apps include bebo, youtube, eBay etc, as well as enough widgets to keep your average geek happy for the tube journey home. The RSS stream is wonderful, enabling you to set up feeds, and then import these into the carousel.
Sound quality on the INQ1 is OK, but then seeing as though I'm not going to use it as a portable mp3 player, this doesn't really matter. Having the speaker and mic positioned where you usually hold a hand piece isn't the greatest of design feats. I can put up with a muffled ring tone, but it took me some time to work out why any video I was shooting came with what sounded like an underwater soundtrack.
The ring tone selection is poor - this is a plus point! Being a social media savvy style phone, I'm assuming that the bright young things of Shoreditch are expected to be installing their own bangin' choons as their choice of ring tone. I was satisfied with the default setting.
Other weaknesses include a poor 3.2 megapixel camera - but then I don't want my phone to take photographs. Messenger also has a habit of crashing the system, but I can live without constant pings from people. This is a trial phone remember. Early release software glitches are frustrating, but to be expected.
Battery life is a bit weak, but then if you're firing up browsers, using IM's and twittering all the time, then it's bound to be a drain on resources.
Having lived with the INQ1 for almost a week now, my mind is pretty much made up to keep the model after the trial period and take out a contract. The 1GB data allowance, inclusive of using the handset as a tether, has to be worth it for the £15 a month deal that 3 is offering with a free handset. I'm currently paying £10 a month locked into a dodgy dongle deal. Twitter (via snaptu) and mobile email access is an added bonus for me with the INQ1.
In summary, the INQ1 is indeed an iPhone lite, with a highly competitive pricing structure to match the more than sufficient functionality. It's already changed the way I go about tweeting / blogging, and it's given me plenty of ideas as to how to achieve future projects online.
Here's the basic tech spec:
2.2" QVGA screen, HSDPA connectivity, 3.2MP camera, microSD expansion slot to augment just 50MB of internal memory, dimensions of 97 x 47.6 x 14.4mm and a weight of 110g.
technorati: INQ1
reply via twitter
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