At Facebook’s event in Menlo Park, California, the Taiwanese manufacturer has officially unveiled the new HTC First phone, which has already made a few appearances prior to its announcement. HTC First is the first smartphone to come preinstalled with the new “Facebook Home” service out of the box. AT&T will be the only carrier to carry this device in the United States.
HTC First will go on sale from coming Friday, April 12th for a reasonable price tag of $99.99 with your signature on a two-year contract with AT&T USA. Off-contract, the device will set you at $449.99. HTC is also prepping to release this phone in Europe via EE (Everything Everywhere) and Orange telecom operators.
Looks like HTC First is a mid-range capable phone, carrying a 4.3-inch 720p display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 dual-core processor, 5 megapixel camera on back side and ships with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS out of the box. The makers of the device kept mum on other technical specifications such as RAM capacity, memory storage, battery size, dimensions of the device.
As it comes Facebook Home service preinstalled. the handset’s lock screen allows you to see content without ever unlocking it. Content will be loaded in the background, and users can see their stuff without waiting. The device will have an unique feature called “Chat Heads” – If you receive a message when you’re in a chat with someone, you’ll see a floating notification on your handset’s screen showing you the image of the sender. A features also shows you how many texts you’ve missed.
AT&T has noted that HTC First comes with Instagram app pre-loaded. Users can purchase it in four colors (not in just 3 colors): black, white, red and pale blue.