INQ Mobile has launched two new ‘social mobile’ handsets, both running Android. The INQ Cloud Touch and INQ Cloud Q are built for people worldwide who use Facebook as their primary means of communication. Each has been designed in close collaboration with Facebook, and delivers a fully live Facebook experience built around INQ’s Visual Media Feed. They feature all-new apps for Facebook on mobile, replacing text-based status updates with a rich media feed to the homescreen.

The homescreen is a visual Facebook feed for clicking through friends’ updates, pictures, videos and web pages. There are one-touch links to Facebook Chat, Friends, Messages, Wall and Notifications. Facebook Single Sign On is activated across the phones and users can check in to their favourite shops, restaurants and clubs with Facebook Places, which is also active on the homescreen. Facebook Events integrates fully 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. The default music player on the INQ Cloud Touch and INQ Cloud Q is Spotify, and all Spotify features are available to subscribers through a dedicated Spotify key.

“We started the ‘social mobile’ category 3 years ago with the Skypephone and INQ1, as we believed integrating the internet was the future of mobile,” says INQ CEO, Frank Meehan. Since then, Facebook has evolved from a social network to become an incredibly powerful global communications platform. Speed and simplicity of access to things you love is our DNA, so our next step is to make it even easier for people to experience the richness of Facebook – all from the homescreen. The power of the Facebook platform enables us to make the INQ Cloud Touch a deeply immersive social mobile experience.”

The INQ Cloud Touch is a 3.5” HGVA, Android 2.2 touch device, and the INQ Cloud Q is a 2.6” Android 2.2 touch Qwerty. The Cloud Touch will be available in Q2, the Cloud Q in Q3 2011, both only at The Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy.