TechRadar's definitive HTC ChaCha review
Let's get one thing straight: the HTC ChaCha is not the Facebook phone. It's not manufactured by Facebook. But let's get another thing straight, too: the HTC ChaCha is the Facebook experience
And it's even endorsed to a certain extent by the King of the network, Mark Zuckerberg, who gave a sermon about it at the phone's launch.
.
HTC has taken its already winning Sense interface and remoulded it with a big blue 'F' at the centre - something the notoriously quiet Facebook founder went on record as saying he's "very happy" with and, in a nod to the future, how they "look forward to a lot more to come".
Rocking the latest Android iteration, Gingerbread 2.3.3 and fully capable of a dance-off with some other 3G-capable Android devices, it's due to hit stores any day now, with a sim-free price tag around £250, and a contract offering of around £20 per month.
That's probably too much for the 14-21 age bracket the ChaCha is evidently aimed at, though we'd imagine Pay As You Go offerings might make it a little cheaper too.
And it's even endorsed to a certain extent by the King of the network, Mark Zuckerberg, who gave a sermon about it at the phone's launch.
. HTC has taken its already winning Sense interface and remoulded it with a big blue 'F' at the centre - something the notoriously quiet Facebook founder went on record as saying he's "very happy" with and, in a nod to the future, how they "look forward to a lot more to come".
Rocking the latest Android iteration, Gingerbread 2.3.3 and fully capable of a dance-off with some other 3G-capable Android devices, it's due to hit stores any day now, with a sim-free price tag around £250, and a contract offering of around £20 per month.
That's probably too much for the 14-21 age bracket the ChaCha is evidently aimed at, though we'd imagine Pay As You Go offerings might make it a little cheaper too.
Like its (bizarre choice of) name, the HTC ChaCha is no bore. Slim and well built, it feels like a quality device in the hand. It's not particularly light at 124g, but feels a lot heavier than the Incredible S for instance (despite being 13g lighter).
The body is made of white plastic and brushed metal. The battery door is plastic, and if you plan on changing the battery or the SIM card often, you may find yourself uttering a few choice words.
The ChaCha ships with a sticker on the screen warning about not pressing too hard on the screen, but we practically put our fingers through it trying to get the stubborn battery cover off.
Thankfully, we can't see the Facebook generation seeing the need to swap SIM and memory cards too often, so this shouldn't be that much of a problem.
For retro HTC fans, the chin is back. Introduced with HTC's first ever Android device (in fact, the world's first ever Android device), the G1, it became an odd design quirk we thought was being phased out. Evidently not.
In fact, looking at the ChaCha next to the HTC Hero of a few years back, they look remarkably similar - as if they were designed at the same time. Same colours, same materials, same chin.
But it does have a function here - as you hold the ChaCha to look at the screen, the keyboard is naturally tilted towards you. We can't work out if it's a nifty bit of designer genius or a coincidence but either way, the chin makes the phone bulge out if wearing tighter trousers, so beware!
The QWERTY keyboard is handy and pleasant to use with rubberised keys, since the ChaCha is a messaging device, but that dedicated Facebook button at the bottom of the phone which fires up a Facebook client is the main selling point.
At the top is the standard 3.5mm headphone jack and a lock button, and the left hand side holds the volume rocker and micro USB charge/sync port, while the bottom holds nothing but a tiny hole for the microphone.
There are two cameras - a 5MP autofocus job on the back complete with LED flash and a VGA camera on the front for self-portraits (or using the very handy Mirror app, which HTC bundles on Android devices and has saved our blushes on numerous occasions).
There's also an ambient light sensor for putting the display brightness onto automatic.
Under the screen, you'll find dedicated hardware call and hang-up buttons (something we thought HTC were no longer using, as we haven't seen them in a long time) and four touchscreen controls.
They're standard fare for HTC Android devices these days - Home, Menu, Back and Search - and acknowledge you've pressed them with a little vibration. The SIM card and memory slot are both inside the phone, behind the battery.
As handset manufacturers go for gold, piling in dual-core processors, Super AMOLED Plus screens and 4G capability, it's refreshing here to see that the ChaCha has some of the more old-school (and budget) specs.
The touchscreen is just 2.6 inches, with a 480x320 resolution, and the processor sits at 800MHz (it was originally set at 600MHz, but HTC appears to have upped this closer to launch). Yet, for what this phone is designed to do, that's adequate and doesn't impinge on the experience too much.
HTC has seen fit to kit the ChaCha out with both HSDPA and GPS, which is just as well since browsing and location based services are two of this handset's biggest selling points.
Within HTC's domain, the ChaCha only has competition in the form of its big brother, the HTC Salsa. That's the other 'Facebook phone' it's releasing, although it will be an O2 exclusive at launch.
HTC's biggest rival for the social networking market is BlackBerry. Ironically, the device that was, for so many years, the preserve of the businessman or CEO is now the big force for schoolchildren and teenagers who want IM.
Elsewhere, there are the INQ devices. INQ brought us the very first Facebook handset - the INQ1 - a few years ago. It sold well (albeit only on the 3 network), and now INQ is following up with the Cloud Touch, which also has deep Facebook integration.
Prepare for an onslaught and expect phones such as this to be heavily marketed by the networks - especially towards Christmas, bearing in mind the teenage target audience.
The body is made of white plastic and brushed metal. The battery door is plastic, and if you plan on changing the battery or the SIM card often, you may find yourself uttering a few choice words.
The ChaCha ships with a sticker on the screen warning about not pressing too hard on the screen, but we practically put our fingers through it trying to get the stubborn battery cover off.
Thankfully, we can't see the Facebook generation seeing the need to swap SIM and memory cards too often, so this shouldn't be that much of a problem.
For retro HTC fans, the chin is back. Introduced with HTC's first ever Android device (in fact, the world's first ever Android device), the G1, it became an odd design quirk we thought was being phased out. Evidently not.
In fact, looking at the ChaCha next to the HTC Hero of a few years back, they look remarkably similar - as if they were designed at the same time. Same colours, same materials, same chin.
But it does have a function here - as you hold the ChaCha to look at the screen, the keyboard is naturally tilted towards you. We can't work out if it's a nifty bit of designer genius or a coincidence but either way, the chin makes the phone bulge out if wearing tighter trousers, so beware!
The QWERTY keyboard is handy and pleasant to use with rubberised keys, since the ChaCha is a messaging device, but that dedicated Facebook button at the bottom of the phone which fires up a Facebook client is the main selling point.
At the top is the standard 3.5mm headphone jack and a lock button, and the left hand side holds the volume rocker and micro USB charge/sync port, while the bottom holds nothing but a tiny hole for the microphone.
There are two cameras - a 5MP autofocus job on the back complete with LED flash and a VGA camera on the front for self-portraits (or using the very handy Mirror app, which HTC bundles on Android devices and has saved our blushes on numerous occasions).
There's also an ambient light sensor for putting the display brightness onto automatic.
Under the screen, you'll find dedicated hardware call and hang-up buttons (something we thought HTC were no longer using, as we haven't seen them in a long time) and four touchscreen controls.
They're standard fare for HTC Android devices these days - Home, Menu, Back and Search - and acknowledge you've pressed them with a little vibration. The SIM card and memory slot are both inside the phone, behind the battery.
As handset manufacturers go for gold, piling in dual-core processors, Super AMOLED Plus screens and 4G capability, it's refreshing here to see that the ChaCha has some of the more old-school (and budget) specs.
The touchscreen is just 2.6 inches, with a 480x320 resolution, and the processor sits at 800MHz (it was originally set at 600MHz, but HTC appears to have upped this closer to launch). Yet, for what this phone is designed to do, that's adequate and doesn't impinge on the experience too much.
HTC has seen fit to kit the ChaCha out with both HSDPA and GPS, which is just as well since browsing and location based services are two of this handset's biggest selling points.
Within HTC's domain, the ChaCha only has competition in the form of its big brother, the HTC Salsa. That's the other 'Facebook phone' it's releasing, although it will be an O2 exclusive at launch.
HTC's biggest rival for the social networking market is BlackBerry. Ironically, the device that was, for so many years, the preserve of the businessman or CEO is now the big force for schoolchildren and teenagers who want IM.
Elsewhere, there are the INQ devices. INQ brought us the very first Facebook handset - the INQ1 - a few years ago. It sold well (albeit only on the 3 network), and now INQ is following up with the Cloud Touch, which also has deep Facebook integration.
Prepare for an onslaught and expect phones such as this to be heavily marketed by the networks - especially towards Christmas, bearing in mind the teenage target audience.
The ChaCha runs Android's latest Gingerbread iteration, which is a welcome move. We couldn't hide our disappointment recently when we reviewed the far more advanced Motorola Atrix (also a big social networking device) and discovered that it ships with the older Froyo version.
We wouldn't have been too surprised to see Froyo on the ChaCha, since it's more entry-level, so it's a real credit to HTC that they've decided to make this as up-to-date as possible.
Do you smell a 'but' coming? Good - here it is. The HTC Sensation - the company's newest flagship device - ships with the very latest HTC Sense on it (3.0). So why is the ChaCha (which comes out after the Sensation) running the older version of Sense?
Curiously, the unlock screen of the ChaCha does include a nod toward Sense 3.0 in the form of a ring that you slide to unlock the screen - so one of the main things missing is the 3D spinning interface, which we assume is simply down to a lower amount of grunt under the hood.
Also, another thing that we noticed missing is the Quick Shortcuts tab that HTC introduced in its Gingerbread rollout to the Incredible S. On that device, when you pull down the notifications bar, there are options to quickly toggle Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS etc. It's very handy and, yet, it's been left out of the ChaCha. We don't understand why.
Since the screen is smaller than what we're used to seeing on HTC devices, everything it reformatted. Icons are smaller, and on the homescreen they're at the side of the large clock, rather than below it. Facebook status updates are also present, thanks to a widget.
By the very nature of Android, all of this can be redrawn by the user and you can decide which icons /notifications/clocks etc (if any) you want and where.
Out of the box, the ChaCha gives you four homescreens to play with, which you swipe across with your fingers, though you can easily increase this number to seven. The capacitive touch screen is highly sensitive and we found no issues with lag or slowdown. - impressive for a skinned Android device with a sub-1Ghz processor.
Another feature that we've come to love from Android phones is the sharing options that are present. Unlike the iPhone, where 99% of tasks have to be done from within a specific app (even with the forthcoming iOS5), with the ChaCha, you can export files across apps seamlessly.
So, if you see some text on a webpage, highlight it and tap 'share', and every conceivable method and app you own that allows sharing will let you.
It means that you can transfer just-taken photos to Dropbox, send a song you're listening to to a mail contact or add a soundfile from AudioBoo to a tweet. It's easy to use and makes life incredibly easy.
Interestingly, with most Android phones we've tested, the user has been required to have a Google account to use the phone.
The ChaCha is different, though - when you first turn it on, you just have to log into Facebook and the phone will then start up. You're prompted to enter your Google details (and you'll need them in order to use, for example, the Android Market) but you're not forced to, which is jolly handy if you're never going to use that Google malarkey anyway.
We wouldn't have been too surprised to see Froyo on the ChaCha, since it's more entry-level, so it's a real credit to HTC that they've decided to make this as up-to-date as possible.
Do you smell a 'but' coming? Good - here it is. The HTC Sensation - the company's newest flagship device - ships with the very latest HTC Sense on it (3.0). So why is the ChaCha (which comes out after the Sensation) running the older version of Sense?
Curiously, the unlock screen of the ChaCha does include a nod toward Sense 3.0 in the form of a ring that you slide to unlock the screen - so one of the main things missing is the 3D spinning interface, which we assume is simply down to a lower amount of grunt under the hood.
Also, another thing that we noticed missing is the Quick Shortcuts tab that HTC introduced in its Gingerbread rollout to the Incredible S. On that device, when you pull down the notifications bar, there are options to quickly toggle Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS etc. It's very handy and, yet, it's been left out of the ChaCha. We don't understand why.
Since the screen is smaller than what we're used to seeing on HTC devices, everything it reformatted. Icons are smaller, and on the homescreen they're at the side of the large clock, rather than below it. Facebook status updates are also present, thanks to a widget.
By the very nature of Android, all of this can be redrawn by the user and you can decide which icons /notifications/clocks etc (if any) you want and where.
Out of the box, the ChaCha gives you four homescreens to play with, which you swipe across with your fingers, though you can easily increase this number to seven. The capacitive touch screen is highly sensitive and we found no issues with lag or slowdown. - impressive for a skinned Android device with a sub-1Ghz processor.
Another feature that we've come to love from Android phones is the sharing options that are present. Unlike the iPhone, where 99% of tasks have to be done from within a specific app (even with the forthcoming iOS5), with the ChaCha, you can export files across apps seamlessly.
So, if you see some text on a webpage, highlight it and tap 'share', and every conceivable method and app you own that allows sharing will let you.
It means that you can transfer just-taken photos to Dropbox, send a song you're listening to to a mail contact or add a soundfile from AudioBoo to a tweet. It's easy to use and makes life incredibly easy.
Interestingly, with most Android phones we've tested, the user has been required to have a Google account to use the phone.
The ChaCha is different, though - when you first turn it on, you just have to log into Facebook and the phone will then start up. You're prompted to enter your Google details (and you'll need them in order to use, for example, the Android Market) but you're not forced to, which is jolly handy if you're never going to use that Google malarkey anyway.
Mobile phones Review
HTC ChaCha review
Body of a Blackberry, mind of an Android. Can the new 'Facebook phone' poke above its weight?
Our Score 4Last reviewed: 2011-06-10Friday at 11:52 BST
Contacts have always been one of HTC Sense's strong points, with a fantastic and unmatched ability to manage your address book well. The ChaCha takes that and builds upon it.
To bring up a contact, you just tap out their name on the keyboard and, as you spell the name, it appears in front of you. You can then access their contact card and see every conceivable option of contacting them (bar carrier pigeon) and each last bit of information on them - from their latest Facebook update to their Twitter status.
You can message them on Whatsapp, and you're also able to view previous messages, emails, Facebook galleries and call history.
HTC really has managed to nail contacts, and they feel just like a natural part of the ChaCha. As with previous HTC models, there's also a sorcerer-like ability to automatically link Twitter, Facebook and Google contacts together, with the option of accepting or declining the change. It's one of the reasons we're big fans of Sense.
This being a Facebook phone, your Facebook contacts are all in there, too, meaning that you don't have to go rooting through the actual app to dig out a contact - you can just call them up on the Contacts app and away you go.
It saves time and effort; you feel that HTC really understand what they're trying to achieve here.
Some of the keys double up as your numbers for dialling (in the same way that they do on a BlackBerry) but there is a really helpful quirk. Say you want to call 'Pete", you dial PETE with the letter keys and Pete's contact comes up.
Say you want to call Daz, you press D (also number 5), A and Z (also number 7). Instead of instantly getting a D when you press the letter, you get a number 5 on the screen, because the ChaCha thinks you're dialling a number. But then when you press the A letter, it changes the 5 to a D. It knows what you're doing instinctively.
To add a number, just start typing it and the ChaCha will helpfully invite you to add it to your contacts.
Call quality is good and we had no complaints.
The ChaCha managed to keep hold of a signal just as well as other phones and callers on the other end of the line said we sounded fine. The quality of the earphone speaker isn't going to win any awards due to a lack of bass but it was by no means bad.
We were able to hold a conversation for a good half-hour without any problems, and part of that was in the front seat of a car on the A1 going towards Hertfordshire from London, where signal bars were going up and down like an elevator.
Bluetooth syncing worked well with our car stereo, too, with no problems to report. The integrated speaker is loud enough to place in the centre of a table and hear the caller at full pelt.
In fact, at times it was so loud, we had to turn it down because some sounds were distorted - but this only happened when the person at the other end admitted to shouting down the line, and so isn't something that HTC can be blamed for.
Bearing in mind that this phone is clearly aimed at younger users, we can't help but feel sorry for bus passengers who may soon be subjected to a high-volume dose of Justin Bieber at the hands of teenagers, once they cotton on to how loud the speaker can be.
To bring up a contact, you just tap out their name on the keyboard and, as you spell the name, it appears in front of you. You can then access their contact card and see every conceivable option of contacting them (bar carrier pigeon) and each last bit of information on them - from their latest Facebook update to their Twitter status.
You can message them on Whatsapp, and you're also able to view previous messages, emails, Facebook galleries and call history.
HTC really has managed to nail contacts, and they feel just like a natural part of the ChaCha. As with previous HTC models, there's also a sorcerer-like ability to automatically link Twitter, Facebook and Google contacts together, with the option of accepting or declining the change. It's one of the reasons we're big fans of Sense.
This being a Facebook phone, your Facebook contacts are all in there, too, meaning that you don't have to go rooting through the actual app to dig out a contact - you can just call them up on the Contacts app and away you go.
It saves time and effort; you feel that HTC really understand what they're trying to achieve here.
Some of the keys double up as your numbers for dialling (in the same way that they do on a BlackBerry) but there is a really helpful quirk. Say you want to call 'Pete", you dial PETE with the letter keys and Pete's contact comes up.
Say you want to call Daz, you press D (also number 5), A and Z (also number 7). Instead of instantly getting a D when you press the letter, you get a number 5 on the screen, because the ChaCha thinks you're dialling a number. But then when you press the A letter, it changes the 5 to a D. It knows what you're doing instinctively.
To add a number, just start typing it and the ChaCha will helpfully invite you to add it to your contacts.
Call quality is good and we had no complaints.
The ChaCha managed to keep hold of a signal just as well as other phones and callers on the other end of the line said we sounded fine. The quality of the earphone speaker isn't going to win any awards due to a lack of bass but it was by no means bad.
We were able to hold a conversation for a good half-hour without any problems, and part of that was in the front seat of a car on the A1 going towards Hertfordshire from London, where signal bars were going up and down like an elevator.
Bluetooth syncing worked well with our car stereo, too, with no problems to report. The integrated speaker is loud enough to place in the centre of a table and hear the caller at full pelt.
In fact, at times it was so loud, we had to turn it down because some sounds were distorted - but this only happened when the person at the other end admitted to shouting down the line, and so isn't something that HTC can be blamed for.
Bearing in mind that this phone is clearly aimed at younger users, we can't help but feel sorry for bus passengers who may soon be subjected to a high-volume dose of Justin Bieber at the hands of teenagers, once they cotton on to how loud the speaker can be.
Of course, the main selling point of this phone is the 'F' word. Although it's not being marketed explicitly as the Facebook phone since there are already a few on the market, it is being pushed as the phone to buy if you're a Facebook afficionado. And fans will love it.
We must admit, we were unsure what we were going to get here. We knew it'd be unlikely that the 'F' button would just fire up the Facebook website or application, and what we get is something that has been deeply integrated into the Sense skin.
Push the Facebook button and you're invited to post a status update. You have to post one to get past the update screen, which can become a bit tiresome - especially if you want to just view other people's statuses.
If you really don't want to write your umpteenth status update of the day, then you have to go out of the application back to the homescreen and tap on the Facebook widget to get in that way. It's a slight annoyance but nothing major.
Once you're in, you can view All Feeds, Status Updates, Photos, Links, Lists, Locations and Notifications. You can also update other social network statuses should you wish, recommend apps, post photos or your own location. It's basically a variation of the Facebook for HTC Sense app that we've seen on other handsets from HTC in the past, but it just seems to work so much better on the ChaCha.
Hold the Facebook button down for a long press and up pops Facebook locations, allowing you to check in at various places. It was quite effective using our GPS indoors and confirmed that we were where we thought we were.
That Facebook button acts a little like a wise old seer as you navigate through the phone - advising you whenever there is something you can share.
For example, just have a little scan through your photo album and it'll start to pulsate to let you know that you can share those pics on Facebook. Listen to a song, then it'll glow quietly to let you know you can tell your friends on Facebook what you're listening if you press it.
It becomes a bit like a greedy dog - always wanting to digest what you're doing and tell everybody. In fact, the little blue button even acts as a camera shutter button - taking the snap, then preparing it for you to send to the big social network in the sky.
One thing we noticed and instantly missed: no support for the YouTube applications. After photos, sharing videos is one of our favourite things to do on the network, so to not be able to pop them up too is a big oversight in our opinion.
The ChaCha is not the phone to have if your boss is a Facebook friend, as he or she will think that you never get any work done due to the amount of status updates you'll be churning out on this thing.
Facebook chat is integrated into the ChaCha and it works really well. This has been an element that various Facebook apps have struggled with across platforms, but it's built into the phone as what appears to be a separate Facebook Chat app.
We were really impressed with the fact that it had its own dedicated widget. It meant that our contacts were listed on the homescreen with a green light if they were available to chat, and we just had to do a quick tap to start talking to them. This is what we mean about Facebook's fantastic integration into HTC Sense; it's like having a chatroom on your standby screen.
One thing we didn't quite understand is why the ChaCha comes with all of this Facebook integration yet is also preloaded with the separate Facebook for Android app. It makes the whole thing confusing.
For example, if we took a photo and decided to send it the old-fashioned way (rather than pressing the 'F' button, going into the 'share menu'), we're presented with the option of sharing with 'Facebook' or 'Facebook for HTC Sense'.
We obviously know that it's the latter, but somebody using this phone for the first time may not well realise this and if they hit 'Facebook' (as most people probably will), then it will just do it via the standard Facebook app that you could use on any Android phone - rendering the ChaCha's main selling point useless.
The main reason we can see for keeping the Android app on the phone as well is the other functionality - unlike other phones, there's no unified inbox on offer here, meaning you have to drop into the application to get your messages.
It seems like a massively missed trick for HTC to not integrate that functionality, as we'd think it was brilliant to open a contact's name in the People tab, press the Facebook key and send them a personal message, but that's not to be at the moment.
Another thing we noticed is that when you sign into Peep (HTC's Twitter viewer), the status updates widget that's automatically included on the homescreen seems to populate itself with tweets instead of Facebook notifications, with the less-frequent FB not available for some reasong and we couldn't work out how to get them back.
You'd think there would be a drop down menu in the app to separate them out - but no such luck.
Speaking of Twitter, we couldn't help wondering why it's not getting a more prominent position on the ChaCha, as it would be nice to be able to share websites, songs and photos via Twitter in the same deeply-integrated way - although we know there are several applications to get most of the functionality.
We must admit, we were unsure what we were going to get here. We knew it'd be unlikely that the 'F' button would just fire up the Facebook website or application, and what we get is something that has been deeply integrated into the Sense skin.
Push the Facebook button and you're invited to post a status update. You have to post one to get past the update screen, which can become a bit tiresome - especially if you want to just view other people's statuses.
If you really don't want to write your umpteenth status update of the day, then you have to go out of the application back to the homescreen and tap on the Facebook widget to get in that way. It's a slight annoyance but nothing major.
Once you're in, you can view All Feeds, Status Updates, Photos, Links, Lists, Locations and Notifications. You can also update other social network statuses should you wish, recommend apps, post photos or your own location. It's basically a variation of the Facebook for HTC Sense app that we've seen on other handsets from HTC in the past, but it just seems to work so much better on the ChaCha.
Hold the Facebook button down for a long press and up pops Facebook locations, allowing you to check in at various places. It was quite effective using our GPS indoors and confirmed that we were where we thought we were.
That Facebook button acts a little like a wise old seer as you navigate through the phone - advising you whenever there is something you can share.
For example, just have a little scan through your photo album and it'll start to pulsate to let you know that you can share those pics on Facebook. Listen to a song, then it'll glow quietly to let you know you can tell your friends on Facebook what you're listening if you press it.
It becomes a bit like a greedy dog - always wanting to digest what you're doing and tell everybody. In fact, the little blue button even acts as a camera shutter button - taking the snap, then preparing it for you to send to the big social network in the sky.
One thing we noticed and instantly missed: no support for the YouTube applications. After photos, sharing videos is one of our favourite things to do on the network, so to not be able to pop them up too is a big oversight in our opinion.
The ChaCha is not the phone to have if your boss is a Facebook friend, as he or she will think that you never get any work done due to the amount of status updates you'll be churning out on this thing.
Facebook chat is integrated into the ChaCha and it works really well. This has been an element that various Facebook apps have struggled with across platforms, but it's built into the phone as what appears to be a separate Facebook Chat app.
We were really impressed with the fact that it had its own dedicated widget. It meant that our contacts were listed on the homescreen with a green light if they were available to chat, and we just had to do a quick tap to start talking to them. This is what we mean about Facebook's fantastic integration into HTC Sense; it's like having a chatroom on your standby screen.
One thing we didn't quite understand is why the ChaCha comes with all of this Facebook integration yet is also preloaded with the separate Facebook for Android app. It makes the whole thing confusing.
For example, if we took a photo and decided to send it the old-fashioned way (rather than pressing the 'F' button, going into the 'share menu'), we're presented with the option of sharing with 'Facebook' or 'Facebook for HTC Sense'.
We obviously know that it's the latter, but somebody using this phone for the first time may not well realise this and if they hit 'Facebook' (as most people probably will), then it will just do it via the standard Facebook app that you could use on any Android phone - rendering the ChaCha's main selling point useless.
The main reason we can see for keeping the Android app on the phone as well is the other functionality - unlike other phones, there's no unified inbox on offer here, meaning you have to drop into the application to get your messages.
It seems like a massively missed trick for HTC to not integrate that functionality, as we'd think it was brilliant to open a contact's name in the People tab, press the Facebook key and send them a personal message, but that's not to be at the moment.
Another thing we noticed is that when you sign into Peep (HTC's Twitter viewer), the status updates widget that's automatically included on the homescreen seems to populate itself with tweets instead of Facebook notifications, with the less-frequent FB not available for some reasong and we couldn't work out how to get them back.
You'd think there would be a drop down menu in the app to separate them out - but no such luck.
Speaking of Twitter, we couldn't help wondering why it's not getting a more prominent position on the ChaCha, as it would be nice to be able to share websites, songs and photos via Twitter in the same deeply-integrated way - although we know there are several applications to get most of the functionality.
Mobile phones Review
HTC ChaCha review
Body of a Blackberry, mind of an Android. Can the new 'Facebook phone' poke above its weight?
Our Score 4Last reviewed: 2011-06-10Friday at 11:52 BST
This being an Android device, the ChaCha comes with one of the best mobile browsers on a phone. Android's stock offering is brilliant at rendering pages and resizing text and it is testament to that that where Sense is so prevalent over other parts of the OS, when it comes to the internet, HTC does, on the whole, leave it alone. It isn't broken - so it's not fixed.
But, where messaging is where the ChaCha excels, browsing is definitely this dancer's Achilles heel. Coming from an Incredible S, we found the browsing experience to be disappointing.
The real issue here is Flash support. Smaller flash elements appeared OK - advert banners and the like. But when we tried to load up flash video on a number of websites, the ChaCha just gave up.
An swirling loading icon filled us with hope - which was then dashed by a large yellow triangle with an exclamation mark warning us we had no chance of getting any further here.
We already assumed Flash wasn't going to work thanks to the lower-spec Qualcomm processor, but to come so close to seeing the video and having it cruelly taken away is more annoying than being told it's not available at all.
Aside from that, browsing speeds are absolutely fine and we had nothing to complain about. The ChaCha is a 3G device that supports HSDPA, and loading pages happened quickly with the rendering speeds we've come to expect from Android's browser.
Wi-Fi was obviously quicker in the majority of cases, but we found absolutely nothing to complain about over 3G instead and we're big fans of the way text reformats upon tapping. The Android bookmarks system is top-notch and, combined with HTC's bookmarks widget, browsing is made even easier.
That said, the screen size can impede your enjoyment. It feelsa little too small for any real web browsing and, although it's fine for a little bit of light use, you won't find yourself navigating full sites on the ChaCha for too long.
But, where messaging is where the ChaCha excels, browsing is definitely this dancer's Achilles heel. Coming from an Incredible S, we found the browsing experience to be disappointing.
The real issue here is Flash support. Smaller flash elements appeared OK - advert banners and the like. But when we tried to load up flash video on a number of websites, the ChaCha just gave up.
An swirling loading icon filled us with hope - which was then dashed by a large yellow triangle with an exclamation mark warning us we had no chance of getting any further here.
We already assumed Flash wasn't going to work thanks to the lower-spec Qualcomm processor, but to come so close to seeing the video and having it cruelly taken away is more annoying than being told it's not available at all.
Aside from that, browsing speeds are absolutely fine and we had nothing to complain about. The ChaCha is a 3G device that supports HSDPA, and loading pages happened quickly with the rendering speeds we've come to expect from Android's browser.
Wi-Fi was obviously quicker in the majority of cases, but we found absolutely nothing to complain about over 3G instead and we're big fans of the way text reformats upon tapping. The Android bookmarks system is top-notch and, combined with HTC's bookmarks widget, browsing is made even easier.
That said, the screen size can impede your enjoyment. It feelsa little too small for any real web browsing and, although it's fine for a little bit of light use, you won't find yourself navigating full sites on the ChaCha for too long.
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