Okay Geek Farm
INQ Cloud Touch, the first Facebook phone goes on sale in the UK
Daniel Carey
Facebook phones, ‘for when the app just isn’t enough’. That’s right, the first of many Facebook phones to come has gone on sale, with INQ’s Cloud Touch heading up retail in the United Kingdom. Making use of an Android based core with tween-infused skinning, the Cloud Touch brings a friendly Facebook-centric user interface to the smartphone.
Currently, the overly social smartphone is priced at a conservative £299.95 ($589) Sim-free and unlocked or subsequently £18 ($29) per month in accordance with a carrier’s contract.
Aimed at the younger mobile market, teenagers and young adults, the Cloud Touch offers social connectivity with low pricing and modest specifications… to say the least. Delving internally consumers will find INQ’s latest offering comes equipped with a 3.5-inch touchscreen running at 480 x 320 pixels. Screen aside, consumers will also find Android 2.2 aka Froyo, an 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor, 512MB of storage, 3G, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and a 5-megapixel camera. Thrown in for good measure, INQ has also included a 4GB microSD card.
As I noted at the beginning of this piece, this is but one of many Facebook phones to launch throughout 2011. Earlier in the year in beautiful Barcelona, Spain, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, confirmed during HTC’s press conference that many Facebook orientated handsets would flood the market. More specifically, the first majorly endorsed handsets produced on par with the social media giant are HTC’s Salsa and ChaCha.
Despite the expected release of several Facebook-centric smartphones, rumours are still running-a-muck claiming that Zuckerberg and co will adapt an Android smartphone; thus creating their very own Facebook branded handset.
Personally I’m surprised Facebook hasn’t already cornered the smartphone market. They may have released applications on every major smartphone platform (and even for several dumb phones / feature phones). But that requires some serious up-keep. Not to mention, creating and releasing their own branded smartphone / dumb phone / feature phone would enable Facebook a greater set of tools. Speaking hypothetically of course: think of all the features that the company could potentially incorporate in their very own phone that may be hindered by operating system / development requirements of the platforms they are currently creating content for; a la Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Phone 7 and webOS. Although do keep in mind this last part is strictly hypothetical and off the record.
