subject: HTC Salsa and Chacha Facebook Phones [print this page] HTC Salsa and Chacha Facebook Phones HTC Salsa and Chacha Facebook Phones
The HTC Salsa and Chacha represent two of the first wave of handsets in what is set to become a common sight in 2011 Facebook Phones. While almost all smartphones today come with some form of Facebook support, either through a dedicated app or by being directly integrated with the phone interface, this is set to be taken to a whole new level in the coming months. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stated that there will be "dozens" of such Facebook Phones and that they will offer "much deeper social integration" than is available at present.
The unique feature of both of these HTC handsets is that they come with dedicated Facebook buttons. It is not uncommon now for smartphones to feature dedicated buttons to provide quick access to features such as the phone's camera, but this is the first instance of such a button for direct access to the popular social network. This will most likely become a much more common feature on smartphones in future.
While the button provides you with quick access to the social network it also provides speedier interaction with the social network in other ways. For example, if you take a picture with the camera on each of the HTC Facebook Phones, you can tap the Facebook button and have the photo quickly uploaded to your profile.
The two HTC handsets come with Facebook as a much more central theme, with relevant information readily available on the homescreen. While the phones both run on Google Android, with HTC's famous Sense interface, the Chacha and Salsa now both come with updates from the network directly on the homescreen. They are also two of the first phones to come with support for Facebook's Social Graph API, so that any updates and alerts you do receive are from your most interacted with friends on the social network.
The Chacha and Salsa also come with excellent support for Facebook Chat, so that you can keep up to date with your online chums in real time. The messaging features of the two handsets are not just limited to Facebook however, as they also come with excellent support for other instant messaging and email clients. They also feature threaded SMS and excellent web connectivity thanks to the Android OS in place, and of course 3G and Wi-Fi connections so that you can always get access to your favourite social network when you need it.
With more than 50% of Facebook status updates now reportedly being made through smartphones it is easy to see the appeal of the HTC Chacha and Salsa. The two phones offer the same high degree of support for the online network, perhaps only rivalled in this regards by INQ's equally fantastic Facebook Phones. The two phones differ mainly in their physical design, with the Salsa opting for a full touchscreen experience and the Chacha adopting a messaging style akin to many of BlackBerry's top handsets, with a compacted QWERTY keyboard to aid typing. While the Chacha and Salsa are two of the first Facebook Phones, you can be rest assured that they won't be the last.
