HTC launches 5 new smartphones, including 2 Facebook phones


15 Feb 2011

HTC has unveiled five new phones, including two Facebook phones, the ChaCha and the Salsa, and three other Android smartphones, the Incredible S, the Desire S and the Wildfire S.

Facebook phones

In spite of Facebook’s denial that it would release a phone with HTC, it seems the two companies did indeed work together to make accessing the social network on phones easier.

“We have worked closely with HTC for several years on bringing Facebook to their devices and HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa are the next stage,” said Henri Moissinac, head of Mobile Business for Facebook, in a statement.

“HTC has brought Facebook to these two new devices in an innovative way, enabling people to connect and share easily whenever they want, wherever they are.”

Both the ChaCha and the Salsa will offer a dedicated Facebook button for one-touch access to status updates, photo uploads, website sharing or checking into a location. Sense.

It’s context aware, pulsing with light when there is an opportunity to share content or updates through Facebook.

HTC Sense integrates Facebook into the UI, allowing users to check their friends’ latest status updates on the dialler screen and informs users of their upcoming birthdays. Facebook messages and conversations are also integrated, appearing within text and email inboxes.

HTC ChaCha

HTC ChaCha

Running on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, it has a tilt design which shapes the 2.6-inch 480 x 320 resolution display and offers a physical QWERTY keyboard for typing.

It includes HD playback and video chat capabilities, with a VGA front-facing camera and a 5-megapixel camera at the back.

The HTC ChaCha will be available in Europe during the second quarter of 2011.

HTC Salsa

HTC Salsa

The Salsa has a 3.4-inch display and offers video calling capabilities.

To enable this, it includes a VGA front-facing camera and a 5-megapixel camera at the back.

The HTC Salsa will be available in Europe during the second quarter of 2011.

HTC Desire S

HTC Desire S

The HTC Desire S offers a new aluminium body, inspired by the HTC Legend. It includes a 3.7-inch WVGA display.

Reports also say it will run on Google’s next smartphone OS – Android 2.4.

It has Qualcomm’s new 1GHz Snapdragon MSM8255 processor and, as with the other phones, offers video calling capabilities and HD video-recording capabilities.

The HTC Desire S will be available in the second quarter of 2011.

HTC Incredible S

HTC Incredible S

HTC Incredible S will have a contoured design to highlight the hardware components of the device and a 4-inch WVGA Super LCD display.

It offers HD video capturing and viewing capabilities and video calling – with a front-facing camera and an 8-megapixel camera at the back, which also has dual flash.

The Incredible S also offers stereo surround sound and DLNA connectivity, letting users share videos, photos and music to a TV.

The HTC Incredible S will be available in the second quarter of 2011.

HTC Wildfire S

HTC Wildfire S

HTC’s budget smartphone is getting a new version, which will apparently be among the company’s smallest phones ever, measuring 10.13cm long and 5.94cm wide.

It has a 3.2-inch HVGA display and will come in black, purple and white.

While it won’t have video calling, the smartphone will have a 5-megapixel camera and expandable microSD memory.

The HTC Wildfire S will be available in the second quarter of 2011.