Standing out in the ever growing crowd of droids is a tall task indeed. Doing so while keeping the whole thing affordable, is next to impossible. HTC – of all makers – somehow managed to achieve it, vastly improving the market prospects of their ChaCha, aka the Facebook phone.
HTC ChaCha official photos
Who would say no to a friendly smartphone with a thing for social networking? It takes a little blue button and we get the point, but the QWERTY keyboard is a statement of its own too. Facebook integration is said to be deeper than ever (and that's on Android 2.3 where it was just fine from the get-go).
Key features
- Light and compact metallic body
- 2.6" 256K-color TFT capacitive touchscreen of HVGA (480 x 320) resolution
- Full four-row QWERTY keyboard and a dedicated Facebook button
- ARMv6 800MHz CPU, 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM
- Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) with HTC Sense 2.1 for Messenger
- Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support, 7.2 Mbps HSDPA
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g, n with Mobile Hotspot functionality
- GPS with A-GPS connectivity; digital compass
- 5 MP autofocus camera, D1 (720 x 480 pixels) video recording @30fps
- microUSB port (charging)
- microSD slot (up to 32GB, 2GB in box)
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
- Stereo Bluetooth v3.0
- Document editor (free download from HTC Hub)
- Stereo FM radio with RDS
- Smart dialing
- Secondary video-call camera
Main disadvantages
- Awkward landscape UI and limited compatibility with some apps
- Limited Adobe Flash support in the browser
- Sub-par camera image quality
- D1 video recording is short of inspiring
- Non-hot-swappable microSD card slot
Even if you take Facebook out of the equation, the HTC ChaCha seems fit to tackle its rivals in the mid-range. Targeting the young, where heavy-texters are in no short supply, the QWERTY keyboard will earn itself quite a few fans. The quality metal finish makes for an upmarket look and feel.