Get Times news on your mobile - text Times to 87700

A new mobile phone for Facebook junkies hits the shops next month. The handset features software that allows users to access social networking services faster and update their profiles and messages more easily than conventional phones.

Aimed at young consumers, it reflects the growth in the use of phones for instant internet access as well as for speech and texting, and marks the spread of social networking as a main-stream activity across all age ranges.

“This is a handset for people who live and breathe social networking,” says Adam Davis, head of devices for the 3 mobile network. “It will completely change the way that people access Facebook on a mobile phone.”

The phone is more a clever repackaging and marketing exercise than a technological breakthrough - but people said the same of the iPod. Called the INQ1, it will be announced this week and goes on sale in the first week of December. According to 3, it will be modestly priced, and because it is optimised for Facebook (though it will work with similar services, such as MySpace), users can network easily without paying extra for features they may not need.

For example, the handset will have dedicated buttons that offer instant access to Facebook features and allow users to “poke” a contact without having to navigate the site itself.

The INQ1 is not a smartphone, and if you disregard its social networking capabilities its features are unexceptional. The slider-style handset will have a 3Mp camera, a 2.2in screen and conventional numeric keys rather than a qwerty keypad. It will also run Skype software and 3 claims it will offer better social networking than rival nonsmartphones.

Most phones with an internet browser will allow you to log on to the site and post messages, but current handsets are fiddly and slow, even with a 3G data connection. You must first load the web page, then log in and navigate the site using a small screen.

New devices such as the iPhone, the Google phone and BlackBerrys have software that makes networking smoother and quicker but users must pay top dollar for the device or sign up for a pricy contract. The INQ1 should be just as user-friendly, if not more so. Its biggest virtues, though, will be its trim size and modest price. It may even feature GPS, which would allow new location-based social networking, although 3 refused to confirm this.

So will the INQ1 be this year’s must-have Christmas present? Much will depend on how smoothly its bespoke software works. The business case is sound: phone-based social networking is booming and 3 claims Facebook alone attracts 44m page views per month from its UK customers using standard mobiles. If 3 can find those people’s sweet spot, it will have plenty of festive cheer.

Explore Personal Tech

• InGear