My Cellphone My Terms

A Review of the HTC Salsa

With a modest (in the age of dual core processor phones) 600 MHz Qualcomm CPU and a half-gig of storage in-built the HTC Salsa doesn’t immediately appear to be that different from most entry level smartphones.

Certainly the presence of a moderately large 3.4 inch touch screen is a nice touch but is, again relatively common in basic android phones. This trend continues down the list of phone features. In almost every case the HTC Salsa is neither a trend setter nor lagging behind the pack. (I’ve included a section at the end of the article with the specs for the HTC Salsa so you can see for yourself.) Where the HTC Salsa differentiates itself from other android phones in the market is that it is one of the first in the new line of Facebook phones.

So what does that entail? Well the Salsa has a Facebook button built into the front panel. One push of this button connects the user of the phone directly to Facebook for easy sharing of status updates, messages and photos. The Facebook Chat widget will also advise a user of the Salsa if any of their Facebook friends are online and allows for easy use of Facebook Chat.

The main selling point for this android phone is, of course, the Facebook connectivity of it but it also includes a proprietary add-on to Android, HTC Sense. This software suite includes some useful navigational tools and a group of ring volume enhancements that include being able to mute the phone by turning it over and to make it automatically ring louder when it’s stored in a bag.

HTC Sense works together with the Facebook features of the Salsa by adding short pieces of status information to the visual call-display features of the phone. This, HTC says, will help you to “be a better friend” by letting you know at a glance what might be important to a calling friend at the time they call.

Aside from the integration of Facebook into the HTC Salsa it is really not much more than a basic Android phone but if the Salsa is a one-trick-horse it is at least a very well-performed trick.

What do you think? Is Facebook integration enough to differentiate the Salsa from other offerings in the market?

See full Specifications below:-