I'm Nicole, the senior associate editor for cnet.com.
And this is a first look at the HTC Status from AT&T.
The HTC Status is essentially the country's first ever Facebook phone and the reason I say that is because the phone has a dedicated Facebook button on the bottom.
The HTC Status as you can see is a very attractive messaging phone, slate-style design, is made out of a white
and silver unibody-style.
There's also a very slight bend to the phone.
This accommodates the curve of the face is also much easier for you to text and type this way.
The HTC Status has an amazing keyboard.
It's very nice and wide and spacious and each key as you can see here is very large and oval-shaped.
It also has a very satisfying clicky feel.
Now, you might wonder what the Facebook button is for and as the name
suggests, when you press the Facebook button in standby mode, it brings out a new wall post for you to post instantly to your Facebook wall.
A short press will post to your Facebook wall and a long press will bring up a list of locations for you to check into.
The Facebook button is also context-aware.
For example, when you're in the camera app, the Facebook button will glow in pulse, inviting you to upload a photo to Facebook.
The same goes
for the web browser.
Just press the button and view web local automatically be embedded into the wall post.
Perhaps the biggest downside to the HTC Status is this very tiny 2.6 inch HVGA display.
It's very bright and sharp and colorful as you can see here, but it's just so tiny.
Small texts can be difficult to read and scrolling through a long list can be quite tedious.
A lot of big downside
to the screen is the Screen Orientation.
The default screen orientation is in landscape mode.
This is a huge problem for a lot of Android apps that are designed for portrait mode only.
As you can imagine, just kinda get tedious very quickly.
Aside from that, the HTC Status is a decent messaging Android phone.
It's just an Android 2.3 Gingerbread which is the latest firm ware update to this date.
It also has a 5 megapixel camera on the back and an LED
flash.
I'd love to display the front facing VGA camera.
Features of the HTC Status include all the usual Android features including Gmail, Google Search and more.
The HTC Status is also quite affordable at only $50 and then you have 2-year service agreement with AT&T.
Overall we think the phone despite it's good looks and great messaging keyboard, the tiny display just doesn't' make it that great of a phone.
However,
if you're a huge Facebook fanatic, having that Facebook button may make it worth it to you.
I'm Nicole and this is on the first look at the HTC Status.
