HTC ChaCha And Salsa To Hit UK In June

HTC’s two ‘Facebook phones’, the ChaCha and the Salsa, are expected to arrive in the UK on 17 June, according to online retailer Expansys.

Although the Taiwanese phone maker has issued no official statement about release dates, Expansys is already accepting pre-orders for the new Android devices. Pricing has not yet been announced.

Deep Facebook integration

HTC unveiled the ChaCha and the Salsa – along with its first ever tablet computer, the HTC Flyer – at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week. Both devices feature a dedicated Facebook button built onto the body of the device for instant access to the social network.

The ChaCha has a full qwerty keypad for speedy texting and instant messaging, as well as a 2.6-inch touchscreen, 600MHz processor and 5 Megapixel camera. It also offers video and photo alerts, as well as the ability to update the home screen with real-time Facebook status messages from friends.

Meanwhile the Salsa has a 3.4-inch touchscreen, making it slightly larger than the mini-Desire phone, the Wildfire. It too offers deep Facebook integration, with a ‘friend channel widget’ that means the user only sees updates from their favourite people.

Treading on Google’s toes?

“This deeper level of integration could make the mobile experience of Facebook more compelling than other mobile versions of the application and, potentially, even more so than the full web version,” said Ovum analyst Nick Dillon.

“It’s hard to imagine Google being overly happy that HTC is using its Android platform to provide an improved experience and greater access to arguably its biggest rival,” he added.

Before the launch last week, Facebook had explicitly denied that it was working on a phone operating system equivalent to Google’s Android, but in a video shown at the press conference,  Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said people could expect to see “dozens” of Facebook phones this year.

This month has also seen the arrival of the INQ Cloud Touch and Cloud Q phones, which provide single sign-on and one-touch access to Facebook features, with deep home screen integration.