Our Verdict
HTC position
severely hook to Facebook ? The HTC Status ( $ 50 with a two - year contract bridge from AT&T ) , which debut at Mobile World Congress as the ChaCha , keep you connect with your household and admirer on the world ’s most popular societal mesh . Targeted toward untested audiences , the Status does n’t have the most cutting - edge specs , but the integration with Facebook within the softwareandthe hardware sets it apart from other message phones .
Designed for status updates
While the Status might be cheap , its design and mental synthesis are far from cheap . The slightly sheer design feels nice in the hand , and its build seems sturdy and high - end . The AT&T unit we receive for review is clean with silver accents , which looks quite stylish and put the phone aside from the legions of pitch-black and chrome handsets out there . you may also purchase a extra mauve edition of the phone from Best Buy Mobile .
RIM might be having difficultness keeping its BlackBerry stigma afloat , but the legacy of the BlackBerry design lives on . The Status also sort of resembles the HTC Dash , the Windows Mobile 6.5 phone from about two years ago . The face of the Status is split between a touchscreen and a forcible QWERTY keyboard . And as with BlackBerrys , this keyboard is excellent and constitute for comfortable , one - handed typewriting . The keys are sufficiently bombastic and nicely spaced , and they have a satisfying amount of tactual sensation . You get some useful shortcut keys , as well , such as a camera key , a “ .com ” central , four - mode directional pointer key , and a voice - command key fruit .
The 2.6 - inch display feels moderately cramped , however , and the small , 480 - by-320 - pixel resolving power wo n’t do your friends ’ profile photograph any favors . The screen is too humble for video ( away from the warm YouTube cartridge holder ) , and the modified aerofoil make play unmanageable . It is fine for dash off email , doing some light browsing , and glance over your Facebook provender .
HTC Status
Between the keyboard and the video display , you ’ll get hold two oblong forcible key . The light-green Francis Scott Key to the left hand take you to your contacts and call history when you press it at the home screen . The cherry-red paint is the End key when you are on a call , but it has other function as well : When you are at your home screen , you could press this key to see thumbnail version of your wall . Above those two keys , you ’ll notice the conversant Android touching keys — Home , Menu , Back , and Search — establish into the display .
Below the keyboard is a button with Facebook ’s intimate “ F ” logotype . This is the Share button , and it give you quick access to the most crucial Facebook feature film . you’re able to revise your position or Emily Price Post on a friend ’s wall by press the button from the dwelling house screenland . To check in toFacebook Places , you iron and hold the Share button .
At the top of the phone , you ’ll find oneself the power button and the 3.5 millimetre headphone manual laborer .
Facebook integration and software
The HTC condition runs Android 2.3 with the modish rendering of the HTC common sense interface ( sensory faculty 2.3.3 ) , as well as some singular Facebook features . In this variant of Sense , you get the tittivate - up lock screen , where you could immobilize shortcuts to your most frequently used , go - to apps . Unfortunately , you do n’t get cool , three-D - like spinning walls ( see ourHTC Sensationreview ) , but you’re able to snarf anywhere on the dwelling CRT screen to see thumbnails of your wall ( as on all of the most recent HTC phone ) .
sync your Facebook history to the Status is simple-minded : When you first turn on the phone , you ’ll see a loge that demand if you want to connect to Facebook . tapdance this box , and you go to the Facebook login page . You then typecast in your Facebook data , and — bam!—you’re quick to take on the Facebook world with your HTC Status .
The Status will ask for permission to get at both your Facebook paries ( which you take to grant if you require to be able-bodied to post status updates ) and your contacts ( so your friends ’ Facebook information appears in tangency profiles ) . You ’ll also have the option to link your Flickr account and your Twitter accounting , if you want .
update from the various social meshwork will show up in your Friend Feed , a widget we ’ve seen on other HTC gumption speech sound . The Friend Feed aggregates status updates , tweet , and the the like into a unmarried current so that you may see what ’s going on with your pal across networks . The main page also shows a shrunken version of the Friend Feed that displays update only from Facebook .
Something I did n’t recognise was that as soon as you lumber in to Facebook , you ’re mechanically shown as being “ online ” and signed in to Facebook schmoose . In fact , one of the special Facebook gismo is a Chat widget , which lease you see who is online and allows you to set out conversation with them straight from the dwelling concealment . This is a neat feature , but I do n’t always want to show up as “ online ” when I sign up in to Facebook . Somebody actually set about natter to me , but I was completely incognizant and did n’t reply ( I had the phone on silent ) until I looked at this feature more closely at a late time . How rude of me ! gratefully , it is quite prosperous to go “ offline ” by push the green circle at the top of the Old World chat widget .
Lastly , as you might have guessed , you wo n’t regain tight integration with Google+ on the Status . If you want to stay connected on Google ’s new societal internet , I recommend download the excellent Google+ Android app .
Camera
The Status has a back - facing 5 - megapixel photographic camera with an light-emitting diode flash . Image tone is okay . My indoor photos had a fleck of a moody mold to them without the flashgun , but then they looked blown out with the flashbulb . out-of-door photos seemed respectable , with bright , more natural - reckon colors .
Like other Android phones , the Status stimulate it incredibly prosperous to post photos to Facebook from the Gallery . You have the option to share either via Facebook or through Facebook for HTC common sense . The difference between those two options is that Sense lets you have a trivial more control over who sees the picture you mail , as well as which album a picture ends up in ( otherwise it will just default to your Mobile Uploads album ) . you may also share exposure with Quaker by style of Flickr , Gmail , MMS , Picasa , Twitter , and various other social networks and platform .
Performance
The Status ’s 800MHz processor treat multitasking and casual internet browsing with no issue . Scrolling through World Wide Web varlet was fluid , and apps open instantly . I did n’t test out any beefy 3-D games on the Status , however . ( With a CRT screen that tiny , what ’s the point ? )
The phone runs on AT&T ’s 3 G connection , not the newsboy ’s “ 4 G ” HSPA+ mesh . If you ’re looking for a keyboard phone on AT&T ’s 4 g-force electronic web , your only option is the HP Veer 4 G , with its petite slide - out keyboard . connection performance was decent . I frequently got two or three bars of response , as I normally encounter with AT&T phones in San Francisco .
Call quality was just okay . On all of the call I made , I could hear a faint hissing sound in the background . A few of my friend could take heed it as well . My friends ’ voices vocalize middling remote on the other end of the channel , while one report that my voice sounded “ scratchy , a short staticky , but tolerable . ” Thankfully , none of my telephone call dropped .
Bottom line
While the HTC Status might not have the most press clipping - edge specs , it gets the job done , let you well stay connected to all of your social internet . The hardware integration , in the form of the Share clit , is specially utilitarian ; the special Facebook widgets are unique , as well . You also get an attractive message headphone with the latest version of Android for an unbeatable price , which construct the Status appealing to many different type of users .
With the Second Advent of Google+ , however , Facebook might not be as democratic two years from now . What if everybody jumps the Facebook ship for Google+ ? ( Could you imagine having a MySpace phone now ? ) Do n’t laugh — it could happen !
[ Ginny Mies is an associate editor in chief for PCWorld . ]
