Posts tagged Telus

I think it’s safe to say that the smart phone wars are on. When the iPhone hit the market I originally thought that Apple had played their hand to put all other mobile phone manufacturers soundly out of business but I was wrong. RIM and their Blackberry stepped up their game and then Android hit the market in full force with their own brand of touch screen phones. The only real casualty has been Symbian in all the hurly burly…so far.

From the UK INQ staked their claim and entered last year with the INQ Chat 3G and I attended the Toronto launch party. I got to demo the phone and to be quite frank I thought the INQ Chat 3G was too little too late especially with the competition being as stiff as it was. Fast forward to this year and INQ was all to happy to send me their new phone, The INQ Cloud Touch, to review. Before I start the review, let me put things in perspective: I have been a prisoner of Blackberry for a year now. The interface and all the glitches (i.e. replacing my painstakingly collected friend pics with doubles of another contact’s face) and general datedness of my Blackberry has plagued me for some time. I’ve missed just about every opportunity to get a Blackberry Torch or similar device so I’ve been stuck with a Bold 9700 for ages. So when I got to try the new Android-based INQ Cloud Touch it was a breath of beautiful, fresh air.  On to the review.

I did an unboxing for you and the contents of the little INQ box are pretty straightforward. In the box is the phone, a saucy manual with people kissing on the cover, warranty, earbuds and charging apparatus. On closer inspection though I was delighted to note that the earbuds have a silicone sleeve where your ears make contact and they are SUPER comfortable. You can wear them all day and not get that ache you get from regular iPhone earbuds. In fact I’m wearing them right now as I write this post and everything is peachy. The sound is great too and they double as a hands free headset. Slick. Also in the box is the AC adapter with a detachable cable that can plug into your computer for data transfer or USB charging. I really like that feature as having just one cable means less clutter around my workstation.

You may have heard the INQ Cloud Touch being referred to as the “Facebook phone” and that would not be too far from accurate. The phone is optimized for Facebook because the popular social network is baked right into the DNA of the Cloud Touch to make it a truly “social phone”. Most of the Facebook integration happens right at the home screen with 4 simple buttons and a home feed. The “People” button shows what your top 5 facebook friends are doing in dedicated feeds. It’s a great function that let’s you stay abreast of your closest pals’ activities. Although the INQ Cloud Touch chooses those friends for you based on the frequency of interaction, you’re not locked into the automatic choices and can specify your own list of friends to get the scoop on. Simple and elegant. The Calendar button is a fantastic thing for the downtrodden blackberry user like me. It seamlessly integrates your Facebook and Google Calendar so you’ll never miss an appointment of birthday again! It’s been really handy for me these past two weeks and I’ve found myself on top of all my tasks and not buried under them. The Notifications button is pretty self-explanatory and will connect you directly to your facebook notifications feed to see what’s happening in the world. Finally the “Places” button lets you use Facebook Places to check in at the touch of a button. Although I am a Foursquare user, I found that having Places so easily accessible made me more likely to use it since it was right on the front of my phone. The home feed, which takes up the majority of the home screen, shares content from your Facebook friends that have the most media attached to it. So links, videos, pics etc will find their way to the home screen and you can click on them to see what’s up. Of course there’s Facebook chat which works just like the web version so you’re never too far to be reached.

I was big into the soft key on the left side of the phone which brings up a dashboard that EASILY lets you control the Time and date, alarms, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, modes etc. it also give you a good estimate about how much battery time you have left and how much of your battery is used by what applications. This is something that seems unique to the INQ Cloud Touch and was one of the single most useful things on the phone. I was also a big fan of the INQ Type function that does a global search for any term you type in. It will search the phone, SD card, the app store and the internet for whatever it is you’re looking for. So if you’re ever in doubt just swipe from the bottom up and you get INQ Type. The 5 megapixel camera is also accessible from the front screen for when you need to get an opportune snap quickly. However there is no flash which could be an issue in darker environments. What’s also notable about this phone is that it’s pretty speedy with it running Android 2.2 so I rarely had any problems with loading stuff up. That’s great because you can run all kinds of apps while listening to music on the DoubleTwist app that loads up when you press the softkey on the bottom right.

All said and done the INQ Cloud Touch is a fully featured Android phone and a HUGE improvement from the INQ Chat 3G. It’s also comes at a very affordable price compared to most smartphones. On a 3-year term it’s only $29.99 or $229.95 with no contract – that’s cheap! I think the price point alone for an affordable Android phone with all those features will make it a real contender for market share in the smart phone wars. Have a look at the specs and prices on Telus‘ site or on Koodo and let me know what you think of the phone down below!

Can I keep it? Huh huh?