HTC ChaCha review

The 2.6in screen is smaller than that on most smartphones, but its 480×320 resolution is still the same as the HTC Legend’s and is incredibly sharp, with vibrant colours and strong contrast. HTC has customised its Sense interface to fit as much as possible on the home screen – the trademark HTC clock is flanked by app icons, and some apps have a bar on the right for further options, such as switching between different groups of contacts. Compared to the 4in screens on most smartphones it feels a bit cramped, but it’s adequate for most tasks. Browsing web pages pushes the limits of the screen’s readability, though – you have to zoom in to read text and zoom out to navigate the page.

The phone is angled in the middle, which makes it comfortable to hold

HTC’s Sense interface, which runs on top of the ChaCha’s Android 2.3 operating system, is a series of interface enhancements as well as a collection of apps. It also provides the Facebook integration. Most of the standard Android apps are unchanged, but HTC’s Gallery replacement is unwelcome – instead of Android’s standard gallery, which provides a 3D wall of photos linked to your Picasa account, HTC’s Gallery is a more plain thumbnail interface with links to Facebook and Flickr but not Picasa.

Other changes to Android are more subtle. We liked the way Sense now adds unread counts to the email app’s icon, and its News app works brilliantly, linking automatically with our Google Reader account to pull down our favourite feeds. The People app helpfully links contact records for people across multiple services such as Twitter, Facebook and Google, and prompts you when they update their status, upload new photos or send you messages.