BARCELONA -- HTC could have a hit on its hands with the ChaCha. One of HTC's new "Facebook phones," it combines a cute, unique design, a full keyboard and a dedicated Facebook button. I spent some time with the ChaCha, its friend the Salsa, and the HTC Incredible S today and I was pretty impressed.
Of the five phones HTC announced today, some form of the ChaCha and Salsa may come to AT&T; the Incredible S looks to be headed to T-Mobile. Sprint and Verizon typically get more highly customized HTC phones, but they won't be entirely left out.
For me, the ChaCha was the standout. Make of high-quality plastic with a very classy-looking white-and-silver design, the ChaCha has a slight bend in the middle that curves it towards your face, but isn't at all annoying or weird. It's a little cuddly.
The ChaCha's white front has a 2.6-inch, horizontal 480x320 screen and a keyboard of round keys that are well-separated and easy to press. The screen is very sharp and responsive, but I'm worried that not all third-party Android apps will be able to adapt to the unusual orientation. HTC had to edit its own Sense software to move its frequent-apps shortcut to the right side rather than the bottom, for instance. I didn't feel like the screen was cramped, though.
The ChaCha and Salsa both felt quite lively for 600Mhz phones. The phones are the same speed as the popular LG Optimus S/T/M/U and AT&T's HTC Aria; that processor can feel gummy or fine. Here, running Android 2.4 (yes, 2.4), it was fine. HTC confirmed that Android 2.4 is Gingerbread; the rep I spoke to said it doesn't have many differences from 2.3.
All I can confirm about the Facebook button is that it works. When you press it, it throws pretty much anything you're doing to Facebook. The phone I was testing didn't have an Internet connection, so there wasn't much Facebooking going on.
The Salsa is less impressive than the ChaCha, at least to me. Yes, it has a larger screen. But it looks like an HTC Aria with a Facebook button tacked on the bottom. The Aria is a fine phone, of course. But the ChaCha's keyboard and quirky bend say "chat! type! share!" and the Salsa says, to me, "I'm a phone that somebody pasted a Facebook button on." One thing that struck me about both phones was how light they felt. Yes, they all had batteries in them, but still, I felt like I had to check. HTC's entire new lineup is feather-light.
I also spent some time with the HTC Incredible S, which may be coming to T-Mobile. The imminent arrival of the Incredible S may also explain why it's running Android 2.2.1 instead of Android 2.4.
The Incredible S doesn't look quite like Verizon's Incredible; the contoured back only has one level of contouring, instead of three. But otherwise this is quite like Verizon's successful phone: a sleek, finished, soft-touch black Android phone with great performance and HTC's very attractive Sense UI extensions. I miss the little red ring around the camera, though.
The Incredible S doesn't break any new ground overall. But it will bring T-Mobile a high-end Android phone with HTC Sense and an 8-megapixel camera. It's a slight upgrade to the MyTouch 4G. It will probably make more of a splash in countries that didn't have the myTouch.
The Incredible S does have one very neat feature: when you rotate the phone, the little touch buttons at the bottom rotate, too. The touch-button area is actually an LCD screen; someone could hack it to display any image, or to display alerts like on the Samsung Continuum.