HTC ChaCha photo gallery shows off quirky Qwerty Facebook phone

HTC is not short of goodies at Mobile World Congress -- with a brand-new tablet, a glut of new smart phones and two mobiles built specifically for Facebook. The HTC ChaCha is one of the latter, and it's an interesting break from HTC's current design style.

Click through the photos above to observe this oddly shaped smart phone from every which way, then read our full in-depth preview, for all the info on the ChaCha you could ever hope to need. 

The most interesting feature is a button devoted to Facebook access, which sits just below the keyboard. It pulsates with a gentle blue glow whenever an opportunity for social networking presents itself -- for instance if you've taken a photo, the light will start flashing to gently remind you it could be uploaded to the 'book straightaway.

Tapping the button will bring up Friend Stream, which is HTC's custom social-networking app for Facebook and Twitter. It lets you update your status, post photos and so on. There's also Facebook built into the calendar so you can see your events and their walls, and in the contact list you'll be able to see which of your friends are available for chat.

It's a while since we saw a portrait keyboard from HTC -- for the last few years HTC has been ploughing away making mostly touchscreen-only phones, and doing a darn fine job too -- but if the ChaCha is a success, we might see more of them. That could give HTC a leg up on BlackBerry, whose mobiles are testament to the fact that when people have to tap out a tonne of emails everyday, they generally prefer a physical keyboard.

We'll have to wait and see, but in the meantime flip through the photos of the ChaCha above, and read our in-depth preview too.