Facebook, INQ joining hands to build smartphones?

Fresh rumors are doing the rounds that Facebook and INQ are coming together with two new smartphones. According to reports by Bloomberg, the smartphones will first release in Europe in the first half of 2011 followed by U.S. in the second half of the year. 

Reports also add that the smartphones would run on the Android operating system. The smartphones are expected to highlight Facebook’s core features. 

INQ in 2009 had unveiled the INQ1 which had built-in integration with Facebook, Skype, Yahoo, Google, eBay and Windows Messenger. Thereby, INQ marketed itself to be the world’s first social mobile handset maker.

Facebook in its statement to Bloomberg said, “We've been working with INQ for a couple of years now to help them build a deeply integrated Facebook experience on their devices. While we can't speak for their future product development plans, we can say that our view is that almost all experiences would be better if they were social."
Despite Facebook’s constant denial on the issue of the phones; reports floating have said the social networking giant has reached out to hardware manufacturers and carriers for inputs on a prospective Facebook phone.