HTC’s CEO Peter Chou has revealed more details about the HTC First, the first smartphone preloaded with Facebook Home. He calls the First as the “ultimate social phone,” but stops short on elaborating on the device’s specs during his brief moment during the launch at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
What we do know now is that the HTC First will ship in four colors: black, white, red, and light blue. It will also support AT&T’s LTE network by default. The device sports a 4.3-inch display, a dual-core Snapdragon 400 chipset, and is powered by Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but you won’t notice that because Facebook Home takes over the phone’s UI.
The HTC First will be available for $99, with a two-year contract with AT&T, starting on April 12th. Pre-orders for the device are being accepted today. Customers outside the United States will have to wait a bit, as the phone would be available in United Kingdom-based carriers such as Orange and EE in short order.
But the question remains: Why buy this smartphone if you can install Facebook Home on your compatible device for free?
This is not the first time HTC and Facebook collaborated on some hardware. Remember the HTC Status (also known as HTC ChaCha) with a dedicated Facebook button? Well that did not become a hit among consumers.
With a different take on the concept of Facebook-integrated smartphone, we will see if HTC First (as well as Facebook Home) will take off nicely.
Source: TechCrunch
