Various rumors regarding Facebook collaborating with mobile phone companies to come up with a Facebook dedicated smartphone have been doing the rounds since September. HTC has announced two new phones dubbed HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa with one-touch access buttons to Facebook. These phones are crafted to offer a heightened social networking experience combined with HTC Sense.
These new handsets are powered by Android v2.3.3 or Gingerbread and employ HTC Sense to incorporate Facebook throughout the HTC Sense experience. The Facebook button on each smartphone is context-aware and pulses with light if there is an opportunity to share content on Facebook. Users can easily update their status, upload images, post interesting quotes or share a website by simply pressing the dedicated Facebook button. When anyone makes a call, the dialer screen displays the contact’s latest status and photos and even informs users if the concerned person’s birthday is approaching. Incoming calls are dealt with in the same manner.
“HTC has always understood that different people want different things and the new HTC ChaCha and Salsa offer special new ways to experience Facebook on a mobile device,” shared Peter Chou, CEO of HTC. “With more than 500 million active users worldwide, Facebook has become synonymous with the social web and we wanted to create the ultimate socially connected phones with mass market appeal.”
The HTC ChaCha provides a seamless social experience anywhere and anytime while helping users to stay connected. It sports a physical QWERTY keyboard, making typing experience an easier one. This handset integrates a 5MP auto focus and LED flash camera for photography enthusiasts to capture images. It also encompasses a VGA front-facing camera along with a 2.6” 480 x 320p resolution landscape touch screen. The HTC Salsa also brags about the same deep Facebook integration. This mobile phone jackets a 5MP camera to capture and upload stills on the popular social networking site. Its front-facing VGA camera ensures high-quality video calling. The device shows off a 3.4” 480 x 320p resolution touch display.
HTC plans to bring the HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa smartphones into the U.S. markets later this year through AT&T. These handsets will be made available across major European and Asian markets during the second quarter of 2011.