Facebook Unveils New Android Phone – HTC First

The Facebook event finally confirmed what the entire Tech world was waiting for with a bated breath: the Facebook phone, HTC First. The well-spread secret called HTC First was finally unveiled at a Facebook event at their headquarters. Designed and created by HTC with a deep Facebook integration, First caters specially to social-network loving people.

“You’re going to be able to turn your Android phone into a great social phone,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a press conference at the company’s headquarters. “We’re calling this Home.”

What Facebook is doing is creating what it calls “Cover Feed” on the home screen of mobile phones that allows people to immediately swipe into Facebook updates and double-click to “like” items or tap once to leave a comment. The move also gives messaging more attention with what Facebook calls “Chat Heads” — friends’ mug shots that instantly appear on the home screen for the user to engage with at a tap or dismiss with a swipe.

Mashing your thumb on your own encircled face at the bottom of the screen reveals three options: Apps, Messenger, and your most-recently used app. In Apps, you have some very limited ways to organize your stuff. There’s a single screen where you can put your favorite apps in a grid (with Facebook status, check-in, and photo upload buttons up top, naturally), but you will not be able to use traditional Android homescreen widgets

The phone is very responsive overall, and there’s no lag to be found when swiping between messages, photos, and home screens. Facebook apparently went through months of testing to ensure its physics engine and gestures were fast and didn’t bog down the device. Beyond the basic core UI, Facebook has built in a few options related to messaging and notifications. Some notifications (or all of them on the HTC First) get displayed in little cards you can sort, stack, and swipe away. Swiping down from the top of the screen shows a default Android notification menu, but this functionality is clearly de-emphasized.

Facebook is planning to launch Home on tablets in several months. The new Facebook experience will not be available for Apple’s iOS devices.

Here are the specs revealed at the press release:

• 4.3-inch 720p display
• 5MP rear camera and 1.6MP front-facing cam
• Runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with the new Facebook Home experience
• 1.4 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor
• 16GB of storage and 1GB of memory
• has a soft-touch rubber design and smooth clean edges

Facebook’s download will first work on the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 as well as the HTC First. The Home download will also be available on the upcoming Galaxy S4 and HTC One. More devices will follow.

It will ship on April 12, 2013 for $99.99, exclusive to AT&T. It will be available in four colors – black, white, red and blue.

Source: theverge, usatoday, engadget