HTC ChaCha review

If you don’t use Facebook, look away now. The whole design of HTC’s ChaCha revolves around the social network. There’s a QWERTY keypad to help you type status updates and send messages, the number keys are picked out in Facebook blue and there’s a little blue ‘f’ button on the phone’s chin, which unlocks a number of Facebook-specific functions.

If you press the ‘f’ button while on the home screen or in a non-supported app, you’re prompted to write something on your own Facebook Wall. If you have the camera open, you can press the button instead of the shutter control to take a photo and be prompted to upload it to Facebook. If you press it while in the Music app, it’ll fill out a status message saying “I’m currently listening to [song name]” – in all cases, you’re prompted before you upload, so there’s no danger of accidentally uploading a picture of the inside of your pocket.

The ChaCha is definitely cute, with its fun name and soft, rounded edges. It’s slightly angled in the middle, so that the screen tilts towards you, making it comfortable to hold. The keyboard is well laid out, although the Space key has been narrowed to make way for a set of cursor controls, which are useful for tasks such as navigating text or moving between fields on a web page. The keys feel well-spaced and have a distinct click that provides excellent feedback, and overall the phone feels solidly built. The four common Android controls – Menu, Home, Back and Search – are handled by touch-sensitive controls under the screen, and there are hardware call answer and end buttons below that.