Facebook Unveils $99.99 HTC First Phone, Featuring 4.3-Inch Display, Facebook Home App and More


By: Ali Raza  |   April 5th, 2013   |   Android, Google, Mobile Apps, News, Smartphones, Social Media

Finally the day has arrived when Facebook’s much anticipated event about its new home on Android, took place on the Menlo Park campus of the company on Thursday, April 4. The CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg hit the stage and revealed the much talked about new smartphone known as ‘First’ in front of the audience, which his company has made in association with HTC. The ‘First’ phone works with the AT&T’s network and it will be made available for sale on April 12th at a price of $99.99. During the event social networking site also showed its latest ‘Facebook Home’ application for Android that brings the feeds of the site directly on the home page of the Android powered phones.

 

The First phone from HTC also comes with the latest Facebook Home app that will give users a first-rate experience of using the social networking site. The CEO of AT&T said that the new First phone will offer the most appealing Facebook engagement that users have never seen before. HTC’s First will be powered by Google’s Android Jelly Bean 4.1 OS and it has a better integration for system notifications as compared to the edition of Facebook Home for other Android-based devices.

 

“The First will come in four colors: red, light blue, white, and black. It has a very minimal design, and is said to “not be huge” thanks to its 4.3-inch display. Below the display are three capacitive buttons, and the overall shape is a generic rounded rectangle with cameras on the front and back. It is powered by a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, making it one of the first phones on the market with this chip.”

 

Mentioning the Facebook app, Zuckerberg said that it is “the best version of Facebook.” For the reason that it works like a “wrapper” for the OS by becoming the main way to utilize the phone. Messages, images and notifications can now be seen on the main screen of the smartphone with this app rather than accessing them through a downloadable app.

 

“Zuckerberg reiterated why the company is focused on the software rather than a single phone. Zuckerberg said that a great phone might sell 10 million or 20 million units–one percent of Facebook’s total user base.”

 

“We’re not building a phone and we’re not building an operating system but we are also building something that is a lot more… than an ordinary app,” he said.

 

The CEO shared that apart from HTC there are other companies too that have already signed a deal with them in order to ship their phones with the preinstalled Facebook Home app. These companies include Samsung, Sony, ZTE, Huwaei, Lenevo, EE, Alcatel One Touch, Qualcomm and Orange. Home will be available for download on five different phones from April 12 through Play Store of Google. Of these five handsets, three belong to Samsung whereas two are from HTC.

 

Source: iPhoneinCanada, TNW

Photo:RootzWiki

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