We can't accuse Inq of having the best timing in the world -- the company announced its new Facebook-centric Cloud Touch and Cloud Q phones at about the same time that HP was busy blowing minds with its new webOS range in San Francisco -- but at least that gave us an excuse to get out of the Engadget bunker this morning and go check out some new gear. We've gotten to grips with the 3.5-inch touchscreen-equipped Cloud Touch and have broken down our first impressions of the device for you after the break. Aside from Facebook, Inq has chosen to integrate Spotify Premium into this phone along with Fluency, the typing prediction engine that powers SwiftKey. The two serve as significant upgrades on the default media player and keyboard software, respectively, and add a nice sprinkling of value to a phone that's already expected to go easy on the wallet. The gallery below will illustrate anything else you may need or want to know, although you'll have to check out the video to see the multifunctional unlock screen and Facebook widgetry in action.
Our first glance at the Cloud Touch immediately brought HTC's Wildfire to mind, thanks to its rounded edges and infusion of color, and playing with it kept that impression up. The Wildfire offers a smaller display and resolution than the Cloud Touch's 3.5-inch HVGA panel, however, and of course lacks the turbocharged Facebook integration that Inq has introduced here. Running Android 2.2 as the underlying platform, the Cloud Touch is dominated by what amounts to an enlarged and enhanced Facebook widget sat atop the home screen. It feeds you news, notifications and updates from your precious Friends, while Facebook's Social Graph API is also exploited to pick out your top five most-contacted friends as a sort of automated shortlist, which is what you're presented with once you enter the app.
Beneath that Facebook jumbotron, you get an app-launching dock that dedicates one half of its links to basic functions like the camera and browser and stacks another set of Facebook options on the other half. You slide it left and right to pick which section you're looking at and it generally works very nicely. Speaking of performance, we've got to say we were pleasantly surprised by the Cloud Touch -- it only has a humble 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor inside, but for such a modest spec, it really doesn't feel limited by any excess of lag. Then again, as you'll see in the video below, loading up the camera and processing images taken with the 5 megapixel sensor does take quite a while longer here than on your typical 1GHz Snapdragon. Still, with the right sort of pricing, we can definitely recommend this as an uncomplicated entry-level device -- it has the basic ergonomics, resolution, and (acceptable) UI responsiveness to facilitate your rampant socializing, while neat extras like the large, above-average loudspeaker on the back and additional hard keys on the sides (one for a system info panel and another to play / pause music) make it a well rounded value proposition. The Cloud Touch is launching in the UK in April, which is when we should know exactly how much that value will cost us.
Our first glance at the Cloud Touch immediately brought HTC's Wildfire to mind, thanks to its rounded edges and infusion of color, and playing with it kept that impression up. The Wildfire offers a smaller display and resolution than the Cloud Touch's 3.5-inch HVGA panel, however, and of course lacks the turbocharged Facebook integration that Inq has introduced here. Running Android 2.2 as the underlying platform, the Cloud Touch is dominated by what amounts to an enlarged and enhanced Facebook widget sat atop the home screen. It feeds you news, notifications and updates from your precious Friends, while Facebook's Social Graph API is also exploited to pick out your top five most-contacted friends as a sort of automated shortlist, which is what you're presented with once you enter the app.
y know
ReplyDeletefor everyone saying how the kin was the worst mobile disaster in the world of smartphones, there are a lot of people adopting kin philosophy. Double standard much?
LOL! It's the Jitterbug of smartphones!
ReplyDeleteIf the plastic wasn't so cheap looking, I would actually like this thing.
ReplyDeleteHow old are you? 5?
ReplyDeleteThat was out of order.
ReplyDeleteI'm a sucker for black white and red. I'm sorry.
ooooo I like the unlock screen, and that's it!!!
ReplyDeletedownload premium apps ==> http://www.iportable.net
I think it has some neat features that I would like to have on a normal phone. I don't want/need any of the facebook stuff, but the info lock screen is really nice.
ReplyDeleteBuy phone, turn it on, login to facebook... Oops, you have been opted-in to every facebook feature. Have fun with that.
ReplyDeleteHmm, the only thing that interests me here is the Spotify integration, does that mean that you get a premium subscription included? If not, then this phone is unimpressive. I had an INQ1 and an INQ Mini and I didn't like either of them.
ReplyDeletei am waiting for this mobile phone
ReplyDeleteLooks like a cross between a Kin and a HTC Wilfire. I'm sure it'll do well.
ReplyDeleteWidgetry? Welcome to Logports, school of Wincraft and Wigdetry ..
ReplyDeleteAnd in the UK it'll be locked on 3, like other INQ phones, so it will never have signal and always suck.
ReplyDeleteCarphone warehouse exclusive, available on all networks.
ReplyDelete