Why this phone you’ve never heard of just won “Best Mobile Handset”

The BlackBerry Storm. Nokia E71. LG KS360. Any one of those hot new phones should have taken home the coveted “Best Mobile Handset” from this year’s GSMA in Barcelona. Alas, they all fell short of the INQ phone that looks like it is straight out of 2002.

INQ, who the heck are they?

This small company has not received a lot of press, until now. The company’s products are online for sale in the UK, Ireland and Australia, but more are on the way. The INQ1 is their first offering.

How upset must other makers be? They lost to this?

On paper this phone isn’t much: 3.2MP camera, 50mb of memory; no Wi-Fi, no GPS, no video calling, no voice dialing. The phone’s design is a rather simple slider, a d-pad and some buttons grace the phones front side. Certainly nothing we’ve not seen before. So how can this thing best the big names?

Here is why they won.

INQ makes social mobiles. The phone’s secret sauces is one-touch access to Facebook, messaging (text, IM, email), last.fm, and Skype. The idea is to bring the apps you use to connect on your desktop computer right to your phone with the same ease of use.

“We created a new mobile device platform that would transform the consumer experience with always-on, easy to use, Internet driven communication services, and we designed it to deliver positive economics to operators,” said Frank Meehan, CEO of INQ Mobile. “We are proud of having introduced Social Mobile to the market and very honoured that our first device has received such recognition.”

The phones apps are on a carousel on the main screen. Users simply “arrow left” and right to find the app they seek, click and go. It is just that simple. It is also interesting to note these phones are sold with inexpensive unlimited text and internet plans.

Is this something stateside carriers are watching? You bet, and so are we.

Company site: [INQ]