Facebook Phone: It’s Real, and Official

Rumors that Facebook is working with phone manufacturers to create an Android-based Facebook phone have come true. British-based phone manufacturer INQ revealed two Android phones featuring tight integration with Facebook, while HTC, which owns INQ, is also said to work on a more high-end Facebook phone, too.

The INQ Cloud Touch runs on Android 2.2 with a highly customized interface based on Facebook features. You can sign in with your Facebook account, pull all your contacts in, and integrate home screen shortcuts to Facebook Chat, Friends, Messages and Wall. The Cloud Touch has a 3.5-inch display, while a smaller version of the phone, the Cloud Q, has a QWERTY keyboard and a 2.6-inch screen. There is no Facebook branding on the device.

The INQ Cloud phones are expected to arrive in the United States later this year. Pricing has not been announced. But INQ said that the Cloud Touch, which runs on a (sluggish by today’s standards) 600MHz processor and has a 5-megapixel camera, too, should be available in the U.K. in April. The phone is tightly integrated with Spotify’s cloud music service. The Cloud Touch’s default media player is Spotify (including a dedicated key), a service that is expected to arrive in the U.S. soon. TechCrunch has a video demo of the INQ Cloud Touch.

HTC, who owns INQ, is also expected to bring on the market a Facebook phone, according to a Financial Times report. It will not be branded with Facebook’s name or logo, but rather have a dedicated hardware key for Facebook. Other details on HTC’s Facebook phone are sketchy, though presumably it will run a customized version of Android, too.

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