INQ announced they would be moving to Android many months ago now, but we now have pictures of the first of the two devices that they have now formally announced.  The first is the INQ Cloud Touch, which should be available (exclusively at Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy for a limited period) in April 2011, which is a traditional touch based Android phone (see above).  Planned to be available in Black, Red and White, the INQ Cloud Touch has the following spec:

Software:

• Android Froyo 2.2 platform
• Built with a modular approach making upgrade to Gingerbread easy
• Instant Messaging for WLM, G-Talk and Facebook Chat
• Free push email across major domains, including Microsoft Exchange
• Info Key to quick access to key handset functions
• Fast unlock for quick access to key functions
• Backup and sync, plus firmware upgrades to later software releases

Hardware:

• Processor: Qualcomm 7227 chipset, 600MHz
• Triband HSPA (7.2/ 5.76Mbps), Quadband GSM, EDGE + WiFi
• Size: 3.5” inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen display with extended 10mm touch strip
• Memory: 4MB with option to add more
• 5 MP autofocus camera
• 1300mAh battery
• WiFi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth, GPS, FM Radio, accelerometer, compass, ambient light and proximity sensors
• MicroUSB charging, 3.5mm audio jack.
• Accessories included: 4GB microSD Card, Travel Charger & USB Cable, Stereo Headset, Quick Start Guide

Although not in the name, INQ have continued their long running Social Networking Support and built in some good Facebook integration into the phone; “Facebook comes alive with a homescreen Visual Media Feed for video, pictures, web pages and newsfeed.

There are one-touch links to Facebook Chat, Friends, Messages, Wall and Notifications. Facebook Single Sign On is activated across the phones and people can check in to their favorite shops, restaurants and clubs with Facebook Places, also active on the homescreen. Facebook Events fully integrates with the Google Calendar on both devices.

The phones are the first mobiles to use the Facebook social graph API, making it easy for people to follow updates from the friends they interact with most.”

Also, the phone will come with the Spotify client, with all relevant Spotify features being available to subscribers.

However, the other phone also looks very interesting. The INQ Cloud Q brings together the same software with a touchscreen based Android handset, but it also includes a QWERTY keyboard in the BlackBerry-style widescreen candybar format.  When we had the choice of the INQ Mini or the INQ Chat, many people went for the Chat as it offered all the same facilities, but with the benefit of the QWERTY.  Obviously, the Cloud Q has a different touchscreen to the Cloud Touch, so it’s not as clear which will be more popular, but yet again INQ are introducing a range of less expensive phones with the same facilities as the top end models from other manufacturers.

Photo of INQ Cloud Q courtesy of Mobile Phones Arena.

Earlier this year, O2 were selling their O2 Joggler units for only £50 (they are still available, but back to the more common £100 price).  Many of us (me included) bought one at that time.  After an initial flurry of enabling telnet (allowing remote network access into the device), and using that access to install some other native apps (Google Maps, Google Calendar, Twitter, Flickr; though that last one never did quite worked properly), many of us either turned them off, sold them, or simply left them doing what they were designed for; running small apps.

However, a small community of users have persevered and actually released a whole range of updates and additional applications for the Joggler.  I’m not aware of many developers stepping up and releasing apps; it’s more the community have worked out how to get other existing apps to work on the devices, or they have worked out ways to tweak the device for better access.

Whilst I was manually installing apps, I heard of a user who was creating a set of scripts called “Pimp my Joggler”, or PMJ.  This took a lot of the hassle out of enabling telnet and installing those apps.  Like many others, having already done the hard work and worked out ways of enabling things, it didn’t offer a great deal extra (especially after Quinten released his script to enable telnet from a USB memory key).

Since then, other users have also joined in, and suddenly there is an impressive tool that’s well worth installing on your O2 Joggler; Plug’n'Pimp.  This doesn’t have a lot of similarities with the early tools, which are still useful, and shouldn’t be dismissed, but what is does offer is an easy way to upgrade and install a couple of really useful applications as well…

It installs from a USB memory key (you put the files in to the root directory, insert the USB key into the USB socket, and power up the Joggler).  Once complete, it will use the built in Messages application to confirm it has been successful (and again for other software updates).  The first nice feature is that you access the Joggler using a web browser to manage this new application.  Once there, you can install a number of new applications:

• BBC Live player; giving you access to a range of BBC channels to stream live (UK only)
• A PDF reader
• Opera Mobile; see more below
• Squeezebox Server; a version of the home audio media player
• SqueezePlay; see more below
• An SWF Manager; to allow a wider range of SWFs files to work on the Joggler

I’ll come back to a couple of those tools in a while.  As well as those, you can install a number of tools onto the Joggler:

• Driver pack; improved drivers (including a better wireless driver, and adds support for NTFS)
• Screen Off; a button to turn off the screen
• Restart; a button to restart the O2 interface
• Samba support; this allows the Joggler to be able to access Windows / Samba shares over the network

You can also tweak some of the settings of the device (such as Brightness, enabling and disabling auto-dim).  The key reason why I like this app though it that it will check for updates to itself and the various installed applications for you, and allow you to keep everything up to date without needing to constantly be checking around lots of different forums and websites and then manually applying lots of updates to the O2 Joggler.

For me though, two apps have stood out; Opera Mobile and SqueezePlay.  Opera Mobile; yes, a full web browser on the device, which is the one function that everyone was annoyed that it was not included from day one.  Being Opera Mobile, it’s designed for a full touch interface, and has access to a QWERTY keyboard whenever input is required.  You can even turn on advance features like Opera Turbo, to use compression to require less data to access websites.  Opera Mobile also supports a wide range of Opera Widgets, and these all seem to work fine on the Joggler, so there’s a Wikipedia widget included straight away, support for Instant Messaging, even ping.fm, and many more available for download.

Finally, for me, but I appreciate not all, there is SqueezePlay.  For those who have a Slim Devices (now Logitech) Squeezebox, you’ll be well used to the “Squeeze” name.  SqueezePlay is the dekstop audio client of the Squeezebox Server, and uses the same UI as used in the latest generation of Squeeze products.  Once installed, this auto discovered my Squeezebox Server, and immediately had access to all my home audio music.  As it’s the same program, it also supports third party apps and additional plugins to offer even more functions, so there’s a Flickr plugin and even a Facebook client!  As it uses the standard functions, you can extend this even further; I’ve got a map of the world showing the areas of the world in daylight as the screensaver for when in SqueezePlay, which comes from a plugin extension.

With these additional apps installed, my O2 Joggler has received a new lease of life; due to it’s speed, it’s never going to be the main web browser in the house, but with the ability to fit into my whole house audio music system, and the ability to easily access particular websites and snippets of information, it’s suddenly looking a lot more useful.  I’ve not gone as far as to move the Squeezebox Server onto the Joggler itself; but with the ability to access large external USB disks or network shares, this is certainly possible!

For more info on Plug’n'Pimp and many other customisations and tweaks, head over to the Joggler.Info forums, whose users and FAQs provided key information to allow me to install these additional apps.

In terms of the majority of the software on the phone, it’s very similar to the INQ Mini 3G that I covered here and here, so what’s different about the Chat, what’s good, and what’s bad?

Well, that QWERTY keyboard is the main physical difference, and it is a very nice keyboard.  It’s similar to the Symbian QWERTY layout, and just slightly different to the BlackBerry layout (the Symbol and Shift keys are reversed compared to a BlackBerry, which makes it a challenge to get used to if you are a long term BlackBerry user).

A GPS is the other key difference to the INQ Mini 3G, and to be honest, it sometimes took it’s time to get a fix, but generally worked ok.  The included Google Maps worked well with the GPS.  Unlike Symbian devices, there is no configuration control over the GPS settings, so no facility for changing the Positioning Server over to Google to help speed up the initial fix.  One downside of Google Maps was it was expecting numeric key input, and that meant pressing the Symbol and the relevant key to emulate a number; it was a shame it wasn’t aware of the QWERTY and mapped keys allowing a single key press for functions.  As with all Brew OS devices, there is no cell ID location function within Google Maps, which limits you to waiting for the GPS to find a fix; if you are used to a device that can also use cell ID location information, then this seems to impact the fast “locate me” type functions when you know roughly where you are and just want to seatch for something local to your position…

In general terms, the integration of the Social Networking apps remains a key selling point of this phone, bringing together Skype, Facebook and Twitter, and linking the first two into the Contact List too.  Personally, it felt like the Twitter app was more of an add-on, with less integration than the other two, and no facilities for downloading contacts or avatars like the Facebook and Skype apps offer.

It’s nice to see the INQ Hub included as standard on the INQ Chat 3G (see here for how to access from the INQ Mini 3G), and overall the phone seemed a nice device.  For a device which can be described as a smartphone (although only just, given it’s limited to Java apps) the battery lasted well over a day, and unless you are using Twitter, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and Skype constantly, should easily last two days.  With all 3 apps turned on, it still managed to last over a full working day, which is certainly a key timeframe.

Compared to Symbian, the lack of worrying about Access Points and just letting the device go ahead and connect to the Internet for you was a nice refreshing change, although for many it may fell like a level of control has been taken away from you.  Of course, with no WiFi support, the only option is 3G connectivity, which helps with the simplification.

So, overall, you may think my opinion is that this is a good, cheap phone worthy of consideration…? Well, I’m afraid it wasn’t as perfect as I would have liked…  Firstly, start running all those Social Networking apps together, and the phone often freezes when one of them is performing an update in the background, which can leave the phone locked for a minute or two, and although it doesn’t come with the Social Networking support out of the box (yet), buying a Nokia E63 and adding Gravity (plus the 3UK specific Skype and WLM apps) gets you very close, with the additional benefit of a true multitasking OS, and WiFi support too (although no GPS).  If it wasn’t for the device feeling so underpowered, then I would be supporting it as a worthy device, but it did occasionally leave me very frustrated.

So, if you don’t want to run all the Social Networking apps all the time,but want a device with a QWERTY keyboard, and the ability to use your favourite Social Networking sites out of the box, then certainly go and try out the INQ Chat 3G; you may be pleasantly surprised at the functionality on offer given the price, and hopefully a firmware update, or software updates will resolve the responsiveness issues I found.

As always, thanks to 3mobilebuzz for the loan of the device, and if you want more information, or to purchase an INQ Chat 3G, then head to the 3Store to see more.

It’s been a busy few days.  Firstly, Nimbuzz announced a fairly major upgrade within their client such that they now have much better twitter support within their application (shown above).  The full feature list for this new version includes:

• Full Twitter client – Timelines, Tweet, DM, Searches, Trends, Profiles and much more!!
• Kinetic scroll – available for Symbian 5th edition touch screen phones  (e.g. Nokia 5800, Nokia N97, N97 mini, Nokia 5730, Nokia  X6 )
• Chat History – see all your past conversations
• Pop-Up notification – for new chats and other events whenever Nimbuzz runs in the background
• DTMF tones in calls – now you can press 1 in a call
• NimbuzzOut rate calculator – see the rates for calling to different countries
• Upgraded UI -  new chat screen layout & contact list layout

Also, NokiAAddict wrote a handy guide to setting up and configuring the Nimbuzz client to support a SIP VOIP account, which may be useful for those trying Nimbuzz for the first time, but want the additional benefit of standard SIP support, and as NokiAAddict are UK based, the guide shows using a UK VOIP provider.  See here for their article.

Then, Skype announced the launch of their Symbian client entering Beta for a select range of handsets (S60 3rd Edition FP1 and FP2, but no S60 5th Edition touch devices at this stage).  This includes:

• Free Skype-to-Skype calling
• Call phones with Skype credits or subscription
• Receive calls on your Online Number
• Instant Messaging
• Group conversations
• File sending and receiving

Now, remember that this Skype client uses the 3G / WiFi connection to actually make the call, Skype are recommending users have an unlimited data contract, and of course, for 3UK users, you will still be better using the slightly more limited Skype for 3 application, as this uses the 3G voice infrastructure for the call, and doesn’t come out of your data allowance.  More information can be found here and the user guide can be found here.

Finally, Truphone have just announced a major design update to their iPhone application.  This new version includes:

• New look and feel
• Streamlined sign-up
• In app guided tour
• Tru Friends presence
• Speaker phone support
• Improved IM and chat with multi-chat switcher
• Full Twitter integration

What’s certainly clear is that all these 3 companies are innovating in the mobile space, and offering their customers alternatives to traditional mobile calling plans.

O2 have today announced a collaboration between themselves and PURE Digital, bringing PURE’s The Lounge Internet Radio streams to the O2 Joggler, and at the same time, reduced the price down to £99.99.  The O2 Joggler, if you remember, is a proprietary device offering access to a limited set of applications providing access to certain facilities (Weather, Road Traffic, News, Sports, local photo display, and messaging).  In fact, back in the March launch, O2 talked about Messaging and Internet Radio following in May, although only the Messaging support got added (and in June); so finally, they have added the Internet Radio support originally promised!

By working with PURE Digital, they are providing a “selection of the most popular UK BBC and commercial radio stations” (around 100 stations in total) out of the 12,000 or so available via PURE directly, although there’s no word as to whether the O2 Joggler also supports the listen again facilities of The Lounge.

O2 have also announced that the device will be upgraded from Flash 8 to Flash 10, and have announced an SDK will shortly be available to allow developers to create 3rd party application for this device, which will then be accessible to users via a dedicated App Store, which should be available before the end of the year (although based on pretty much all the timeframes so far being missed with this device, don’t hold your breath!)

Initially, the O2 Joggler App Store will only support free applications, which is probably a good move; and any developers interested in developing for this device should look at some of the UK specific widgets developed for the Chumby platform to understand what might work for the UK.  As a hint, Flickr photo display, Live UK train departure / arrival information, and BBC support would all help the device, not to mention apps such as instant messaging and Social Networking support, plus last.fm and/or Spotify support would help make this device sell better, and compete against the PURE Sensia and it’s own application support.

Of course, whether O2 would authorise all those applications is another story, but as the device does not use their 3G network (only the local broadband connection), there is little reason to limit the device, and support like this could in time make it a firm favourite with O2 customers…

This is an interesting phone, and shows that both the main mobile phone companies and the mobile networks can work together to produce a phone capable of more than just calls!  The phone (as we mentioned before) has Twitter and Facebook support, as well as the usual 3UK features (Skype on 3, Email on 3, Windows Live Messenger etc) and the phone also has some RSS support too.

Some features were well integrated, eg if you take a picture, the menu then offers to Send the photo to Twitter or Facebook as well as the more usual options.  However, others, such as the Social Networking apps themselves, weren’t so easy to find; Facebook wasn’t too bad, as it’s available from Menu / Messaging, but Twitter was only found in Menu / Entertainment / Applications, whereas, it would have made more sense in the Messaging area alongside Facebook.

However, in that app list, there were a number of other useful applications, including AccuWeather, YouTube, Yell, as well as the 3UK specific apps.  Also, was a Permier Football Scores app (although this requires you to pay a subscription to use it at all).

In other terms, the phone, and 3UK‘s integration was good (personally I don’t like 3UK taking over both softkeys on the homescreen, but this is a minor point).  I did like the way that 3UK recognised I had moved my 3 SIM into a different phone, and automatically sent the latest 3UK settings to the phone (including sending an SMS in advance telling me what was happening, and how to accept the settings).

However, all was not perfect; I didn’t like the back cover, which is held on with 2 clips at the top and 2 more at the bottom, therefore needing some force to remove it; no nice buttons / slide to remove here.  Okay, the rear cover only gives access to the battery, SIM and microSD card slot, so probably does not need to come off often, but it still detracted from the phone.  Also, the phone uses a proprietary connection for both the handset and charging; given the general move by the other manufacturers towards microUSB, this was a shame (some, like LG, are already shipping phones with microUSB).

In a normal week, I would be saying that this is a really good, all round phone, but I’ve just had the new INQ Mini delivered, and that seems to offer a similar package that’s easier to use, and has less negatives, but that’s for another article…

The Sony Ericsson T715 is available from 3UK in Pink and Silver, and thanks to 3mobilebuzz for the loan of the phone.

The INQ Mini (right) became available on 3UK on Friday, and is only £59.99 on PAYG (which includes £10 of credit), and available from £15 per month (18 month contract).  This is a key phone for 3UK in the run up to Christmas; with it’s Twitter and Facebook support builtin, not to mention 3UK‘s standard offerings of Skype on 3, Windows Live Messenger, and Email on 3, this phone has something for everyone.

In fact, we mustn’t forget some of the other applications included on the phone; World Clock, Weather, Search and Feeds (all widgets), and with the Facebook and Skype contacts integrated into the main Contacts, this seems to offer a nice range of features for the price.

It comes with a red battery cover in the box, and although other colours are due to be made available, they don’t yet appear to be available.

The only thing that would distract us from the INQ Mini is the INQ Chat (on the left in the picture), which adds a QWERTY keyboard, and GPS support, but that’s still not available, and will cost nearly twice as much.

This is the Linutop 3, a small form factor PC running Linux.  Linutop promote these PCs for various usages; kiosks, digital signage, standalone usage, but we think these PCs also work well in a couple of other scenarios too; as fanless PCs, they can serve well in bedrooms, or in the lounge to act as a quiet PC for various internet tasks.

The Linutop 3 has a Via C7 1GHz processor (compared to the Geode 500MHz in the Linutop 2), and features 1GB DDR2 RAM (up from 512KB) and 2GB of Flash (up from 1GB).

In fact, we’ve had a Linutop 2 in for review for some while, and really accpreciate the additional effort Linutop has taken with the OS; as well as providing a customised Ubuntu install (based on Ubunto v8.04), it also features additional controls, such as locking the whole OS so nothing is preserved between boots (very useful for kiosk environments).  On top of that, Linutop update their OS image every few months, incorporating the latest software updates into the core Flash image, allowing valuable space that the software updates take up to be reclaimed.  You can also backup to a USB key, or boot and restore the device from a key (providing a nice easy upgrade path when they release the new OS images, although you do lose all data).

Within that OS image, Linutop include Firefox (with Flash support), OpenOffice, VLC Media Player, and even Pidgin Instant Messaging.

The Linutop 3 is larger than the Linutop 2 (9.3 x 9.3 x 2.2 inches, compared to 5.5 x 5.5 x 1.4), is a little heavier, and now draws 20 Watts instead of a more average 8 Watts from the Linutop 2.  This low power consumption makes these devices very good for leaving permanently on all the time, without the normal overhead of a full PC.  However, these devices will never compete on speed of tasks, so be prepared for a slightly slower experience.

In other areas, the Linutop 3 offers DVI support and a higher resolution that than the Linutop 2 (now 1920 x 1080), more USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet (up from Fast Ethernet), and an internal PCIe expansion option.

Our biggest issue with the Linutop 2 is the difficulty in getting BBC iPlayer working on the device, which would make it a lot more useful…

The Linutop 3 sells for €340, and the Linutop 2 is still available at €280 (both require an additional €28 for delivery) direct from the manufacturer here.  By the way, if you think the Linutop 2 is the same as other manufacturer’s devices in the same form factor (eg the Viglen unit), think again; the Linutop 2 is a higher spec device, both in terms of memory, flash and processor.

One complaint levelled at Nokia’s Share Online service is that it’s limited to 3 services (Flickr, Ovi and Vox).  Well, that’s not quite true.  Although no other services are available for configuration from Nokia (and you can’t add your own manually), it seems some companies have fathomed out what’s involved, and will allow you to connect Share Online to their services…

Firstly, one of the popular twitter image sites, mobypicture have provided simple instructions for using Nokia Share Online (and Nokia Lifeblog for elder phones).  These instructions are here.

Secondly, pixelpipe, an up and coming competitor to ShoZu, have also setup the ability to use their services via Share Online, therefore saving the need for the installation of an additional app just to upload photos.  Pixelpipe support a whole range of upload options; email, MMS (strangely very popular right now for iPhone users!), and they also have support for iPhones directly, Nokia phones (using Share Online) and finally an Android app for Android phones.  More information on all these options can be found here.

Actually, pixelpipe support a whole range of upload options, ranging from Windows app, Firefox, Linux and Mac utilities, and they even have facilities for uploading via instant messaging! pixelpipe currently support 75 services to post that content (text, photos, video, even audio files) to, with a full range of social networking sites, photo & video services, and blogging and micro-blogging platforms.

The only downside with using Share Online instead of ShoZu is that ShoZu does have the facility for offering an automatic upload option (and also can ask you to confirm before sending), whereas with Share Online it’s more of a manual process (also, ShoZu is much better at queuing multiple requests), but for some, ShoZu either doesn’t work, or isn’t worth the memory used to keep it running in the background to provide these services.

Finally, although we’ve not compared the list to work out whether it’s absolutely true; pixelpipe claim to support at least 25 more sites than ShoZu…

We’re impressed companies have worked out how to link into the limited Share Online functionality, and it’s nice to see a greater range of choice of how to upload your photos and videos, and with two of these services supporting a single upload and making the file available on multiple sites, these are worthy of further investigation for many as a method of keeping data usage down.

3 have updated their PAYG offering from today, and overall, it seems to us to be a good compromise between offering lots of extra functionality and controlling the price of calls; but beware, if you don’t use all the extras, the net result may be increased call costs.  We should point out that existing customers will need to head to My3 to update their PAYG choice to the new 3Pay (from the current popular Flat12), although this is likely to be the standard option for new SIMs.

There are a number of differences between the old and new, and we must remember that some of the headline benefits of 3Pay are available already, such as the Free Skype Calls Forever promotion.

So, the differences are:

• Voice call costs have risen from 12p per minute (Flat12) to 20p per minute (3Pay)

3Pay offers the following additional benefits (which are all applied immediately, but expire after 90 days if not used):

• Depending on the TopUp level, you get additional texts (only valid for 90 days), for example:TopUp with £5 and get 25 free texts
  TopUp with £10 and get 300 free texts (doubled to 600 if topup is via My3)
  TopUp with £15 and get 500 free texts (doubled to 1000 if topup is via My3)
  TopUp with £20 and get 1000 free texts (doubled to 2000 if topup is via My3)
  TopUp with £25 and get 3000 free texts (irrespective of where you topup)

  We should point out 3 advertise the £25 TopUp as coming with “unlimited” texts, but as it has a limit of 3000 texts, we have simply used that figure.

  When these free texts expire, sending an SMS in the UK is now 10p, compared to 12p on Flat12 (although there were a number of Stretch options to improve this rate).

• Along with free texts, you also get 150MB of data usage (expires after 90 days with no rollover).  Once this usage is used up, it will be 30p per MB extra.
• Free Windows Live Messenger (you need to use the 3 provided application, which now should work with unbranded generic firmwares as well; it used to rely upon a security certificate that was only included in the 3-specific firmwares).  No fair usage specified, but we expect it to be subject to the existing limits.
• Free Skype (although this is being advertised as part of the 3Pay offer, Skype access is available even if your credit has run out).
• Free 3-3 Calls; also included on PAYG is 5000 free minutes of calls from 3UK to 3UK phones over that 90 day period (Flat12 has no such allowance, except the ability to get 100 3UK-3UK minutes if you used the Stretch addons, which only lasted for 30 days).
• Free 3UK voicemail access (the same as Flat12, as is video calls being 50p/minute and calls to 08xx numbers being 15p connection plus 15p/minute).

So, if you use a little data each month, or can balance your call usage alongside your data usage, then this may well result in sufficient savings alongside the free Live Messenger and free 3UK – 3UK calls. If you currently TopUp every month and call other 3UK users, you may find that overall the savings are quite considerable.

Personally, I like the fact the 150MB Internet allowance is automatically applied when the TopUp is credited to the account; today to purchase internet access you have to TopUp and then remember to go and buy an Addon; this way it will limit the exposure people have to accidental data usage, and this seems to make phones, like the INQ1 a very popular and sensible decision on the new 3Pay PAYG scheme, giving you the power of the Social Networking facilities potentially without any internet costs at all.