HTC was not only the winner of the Device Manufacturer of the Year Global Mobile Award, but also introduced five new phones and its first tablet (HTC Flyer) at MWC 2011. While the Taiwanese manufacturer did release product refreshes in the form of the HTC Incredible S, Desire S, and Wildfire S, the two new Facebook-integrated phones (HTC Salsa & ChaCha) were the highlights in the mobile department.
HTC Facebook Phones
The two phones feature a dedicated Facebook button, which brings up a Facebook context menu, ensuring users are one-click away from updating their status, sharing content, or chatting. They both pack 600MHz processors and 5MP auto-focus LED flash cameras.
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Salsa
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ChaCha
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The two new Facebook phones will begin shipping sometime in Q2 2011, and will apparently be running Android 2.4 – Ice Cream? – when they arrive. While the HTC Salsa is a full-touch offering with 3.4-inch (480×320) touchscreen, the ChaCha is a four-line QWERTY phone with a 2.6-inch (480×320) touchscreen. They both pack 600MHz processors and 5MP auto-focus LED flash cameras.
HTC Incredible S, Desire S and Wildfire S
The Incredible S, Desire S and the Wildfire S unfortunately are rather drabber in theory, with basic refreshes to the phones – and not a single dual-core processor to be seen. They are all due to launch in Q2 2011 as well. The Incredible S gets a 4-inch Super LCD screen, special mutable capacitive keys, a 1GHz Qualcomm processor, and 768MB RAM. The product shown was still running Froyo, though a pre-launch Gingerbread upgrade is probable.
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Incredible S
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Desire S
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Wildfire S
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[RELATED_ARTICLE]The Desire S gets an aluminium unibody, a 3.7-inch screen, 1Ghz Qualcomm CPU with Adreno graphics, 768MB RAM, Wi-Fi 802.11n support, and improved data speeds. It supposedly ships with Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
The Wildfire S is even smaller than its predecessor, and gets a 3.2-inch touchscreen, 600MHz CPU and 512MB RAM. Somehow, however, it features Bluetooth 3.0 and NFC support, which its bigger brethren do not feature.
HTC Flyer Tablet
HTC’s tablet, the Flyer, looks to take on the smaller tablets like the Galaxy Tab and the rumoured iPad 2, with a 7-inch screen (1024×600). It has an aluminium unibody, unique so far amongst all other tablets from major manufacturers, and will apparently ship with the ‘Ice Cream’ phone-tablet Android OS – 2.4. It will arrive sometime in Q2, with a 1.5GHz single core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 32GB of onboard storage.
Other features include a 5MP camera and 1.3MP webcam, a 4000mAh battery that supposedly offers up to four hours of continuous video playback, ‘Scribe’ stylus technology with Timemark audio recording, and the OnLive game service.