HTC Salsa Android smartphone
HTC has released two 'Facebook phones' of late – the Qwerty-packing ChaCha and the Salsa, the latter being a compact bundle of fun, which wears its dedicated Facebook button just beneath its screen. HTC Salsa HTC's Salsa: spiced with Facebook favours While the designers of the ChaCha had obviously looked over the shoulder of …
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Salsa Sense is good
I ran a Salsa-based ROM on my HTC Hero for a few weeks. The Hero was just a little bit too underpowered to stop it being frustrating however the UI was IMO very good indeed. I especially liked the new lock screen
A. Facebook. Button. Sigh.
Distinguishing feature: A facebook button.
Really?
Is this what passes for innovation nowadays?
Come-on Apple/HTC/Nokia/Microsoft... please try a little harder.
'Smartphone Innovation'
Given that pretty much every consumer smartphone now is a capacitive touchscreen slab, unfortunately something like a hardware Facebook button is quite innovative. Just look at the rest of HTC's smartphones: they all look the same. Try and get the average person on the street to tell the difference between a Sensation, Incredible S and Desire S. Even the Windows Phones look almost the same (HTC Desire HD to HD7, Desire S to Trophy).
The only really different type of smartphone is the QWERTY messenger, and they'll fade with RIM and Symbian's decline.
I miss the days of bonkers phone design. The Nokia N90 and E70 come to mind.
Almost OK
Just get rid of the Fartbook button and it's a winner for real people
Wow! A Facebook button!
I reverse engineered this and managed to make a version that works on my Nexus One.
I call it......an icon!
battery
So which is it? 1250mAh or 1520mAh? The box-out says 1250 but the text says 1520. Don't suppose it matters much but enquiring minds and all that.
I'd prefer an all-rounder
Imagine if smartphones had gone mass-market a few years earlier. Done that? Good.
Now imagine whipping out your MySpace phone down the pub.
@A. Facebook. Button. Sigh.
> Is this what passes for innovation nowadays?
But the question is .... did they patent it!
Par for the course?
How is 480x320 par for the course so long as you can buy the Orange San Francisco with a full 800x480 screen for under £100?
Or...
Given the £300 price tag, an original desire with 800x480 AMOLED, a 1Ghz processor and more RAM.
Two phones I'd like to see
1) A smallish smartphone, like the Wildfire, but with a 1GHz or higher processor. Why should small handsets all be budget phones?!
2) A smartphone with a touchscreen and a slide-out portrait numpad, a bit like the old HTC Touch Dual. I reckon the kids would love it for txting, and it would probably appeal to those that find full tiny hardware qwerty keyboards a bit cumbersome.
Either of these would be more innovative than a Facebook button. Come on HTC!
Re: Two phones I'd like to see
+1 They'd have my pounds if they did a smaller premium smartphone.
@Dogged
Alas the Venue Pro doesn't quite meet the requirements, as the keyboard is still a tiny cramp-inducing portrait qwerty not a number pad like dumbphones of yore.
Plus it runs an operating system I've never heard of. Windows what-now?
I kid, I kid...
So they removed the scroll button from the phone...
...and put a similarly sized facebook button. Bit of a step backwards.
Licensing
I wonder who pays whom (FB or HTC), and how much, for putting the button there?
No Flash?
From what spec I've found the Salsa runs a ARMv6 processor, so no native flash then :(
The odd shaped chin...
I find the chin (on my old Hero, at least) makes the phone more comfortable to hold and manipulate with one hand - it kind of hooks onto your thumb. Also, if you place the phone face-down on a flat surface, neither the screen, nor any hardware buttons, touch the surface. It's a nice piece of design, even if it does look a little odd.
Uh-oh
"One push lets you make a quick post, but it offers different options depending on what function you’re in – from the camera it will instantly take a picture and offer to post it straight away"
...like that isn't a disaster waiting to happen.
trackpad
I wish htc would start putting optical trackpads back on their phones
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