I've got an INQ1 sitting on my desk at the moment, and while I certainly don't think it's perfect, i'm pretty impressed with its contacts list (can voice call, sms, MMS, Skype call, Skype chat, AIM chat, MSN chat, Facebook poke, write on wall, message or view status updates - all from the contacts list) and easy integration of Facebook. There is no other phone on the market that can do this out of the box. The Skype implementation is really good, and build quality is solid, too. I like the news and weather widgets.

you've also got to take into account the value of the plans it comes on.

Admittedly the camera is crap, the browser is a bit weak and it would be much better with a qwerty keyboard, but for a cheap, "dumb" phone it's more than acceptable. Comparing it to a K800i which is an entirely different and much more expensive device is not really fair.

It's not as good as my BlackBerry Bold or an N-series Nokia, but it's also about 1/3 of the price. It won the award because it's cheap and has high potential for taking mobile web services to the mass market. that's why the mobile industry (MWC is run by the GSMA which includes a lot of mobile network operators) liked it more than a slew of high-end phones from other manufacturers. it's an exciting product.

INQ is a handset manufacturer division of Hutchison Telecoms, which runs the 3 mobile networks in Europe and Asia, and several other networks.

The INQ1 is the first phone released under the INQ brand, but the team was also responsible for the 3 "Skypephone".

a few points:

- the MWC awards are voted for by people who work in the mobile industry (not just consumers), with the votes being counted weeks before the show. which means none of the handsets that were announced at or just before the show were eligible. It is not a fanboy popularity contest.
- the awards are for handsets that are actually in the market now, not for handsets that will only be out in a few months.
- the people who vote can only vote for devices that are nominated. it's up to the manufacturers to nominate their own devices.
- the iPhone was not nominated, because apparently Apple couldn't be bothered, so there was no way for people to vote for it.
- the INQ1 won because it does some impressive things with social networking and web services, and integrates them right into the phone's OS and UI. it's especially impressive considering its low price. there are certainly many more powerful and feature-rich phones on the market, but the INQ1 is trying to take web services into the low-mid market, which is a very very good thing, and something that no other manufacturer has really managed to do yet.