Whoaa nelly!
I’ve always been curious about TORQUE’s roadmap in the Philippines. As a China sourced phone with local branding (TORQUE’s local endorser is Luis Manzano), they’ve made some rather humorous moves in the industry, one of which is this E72 / E71 clone, the DQ500. TORQUE’s PR lent me a few phones to try out (check the F1 feature) but this phone wasn’t included in the catalogue. I begged them to have a demo sent over as it was just too funny to let pass. It’s an E72 clone!
From afar, you won’t be able to tell the two apart. But there’s more to the DQ500 than its jest at Nokia’s most popular enterprise device: for PHP 4,999.00 you get a dual SIM phone with really loud audio. The DQ500 is lighter than the E72 and feels almost exactly like it. If all you’re after is the aesthetic (poser!), you get to save over twenty thousand pesos if you buy this phone. A 1.3MP camera with video, Bluetooth, voice recorder, trans flash expansion, FM Radio and GPRS are the other features. That’s it really.
The DQ500 mimics the call and menu buttons of the E72 by instead making each button act as the “call” for SIM 1 and SIM 2, with one red end call button while the remaining odd key acts as the back button.
What’s next in the pipeline: I hear they’re going for the most affordable Android market. Go TORQUE! Undercut the competition!