TechRadar Verdict
A splendid effort at taking the BlackBerry masses away from RIM and onto a deeper Facebook Android experience.
Pros
- +
Great Facebook integration
- +
Thought-out UI
- +
Typing is a dream
- +
Small battery with a long life and quick charge
- +
Responsive touchscreen
Cons
- -
Screen sometimes feels too small
- -
Camera could be better
- -
Flash on websites doesn't work properly
- -
Chin makes the design look odd
- -
Awful name
Why you can trust TechRadar
Let's get one thing straight: the HTC ChaCha is not the Facebook phone. It's not manufactured by Facebook. But let's get another thing straight, too: the HTC ChaCha is the Facebook experience
And it's even endorsed to a certain extent by the King of the network, Mark Zuckerberg, who gave a sermon about it at the phone's launch.
You can check out TechRadar's exclusive video review of the HTC Cha Cha
.
HTC has taken its already winning Sense interface and remoulded it with a big blue 'F' at the centre - something the notoriously quiet Facebook founder went on record as saying he's "very happy" with and, in a nod to the future, how they "look forward to a lot more to come".
Rocking the latest Android iteration, Gingerbread 2.3.3 and fully capable of a dance-off with some other 3G-capable Android devices, it's due to hit stores any day now, with a sim-free price tag around £250, and a contract offering of around £20 per month.
That's probably too much for the 14-21 age bracket the ChaCha is evidently aimed at, though we'd imagine Pay As You Go offerings might make it a little cheaper too.