From roughly 2002 to 2007, Danger’s Sidekick phones were the choice for teens and tweens. They were cool, relatively cheap, and focused on messaging. The smartphone market has changed drastically with the introduction of the iPhone, but there hasn’t been a phone that was aggressively targeted towards teens and tweens…until now.
The HTC Status has been officially announced for AT&T and Telus. It’s a Google Android phone with HTC Sense 3.0 and, most importantly, heavy Facebook integration. Here’s some marketing copy and specs from the official Facebook page:
The HTC Status lets you share pretty much everything with just about everyone, instantly. It’s the first-ever device with a Facebook Share Button. Now, you can share videos, chats, check-ins, sites and songs with your friends on Facebook at the push of a button. And with new music, new videos, group deals and live events to share with you all summer long, it’s the most outgoing phone in the social universe.
Platform: Android™ 2.3 + HTC Sense™
Display: 2.6-inch touch screen with 480 x 320 resolution
Network: Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 UMTS/HSDPA 850/1900
Memory: 512 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM
Processor: MSM7227, 800 MHz
Battery: Rechargeable lithium-ion battery, 1250 mAh
Camera: 5 MP main camera with autofocus, 1.3 MP front-facing camera
On paper, it seems like a brilliant idea. The Status should be a relatively inexpensive phone that combines a capable mobile operating system, fashionable hardware, and the most popular social network in the world. That said, I wonder if the target market even wants such a phone. The Android and iOS apps for Facebook are already quite capable. Is more Facebook integration really required or needed? Would a teen on a budget rather have the HTC Status or last year’s iPhone model?
Of course I’d love to get your thoughts on the HTC Status. Do you think it will take off? Will it be this decade’s Sidekick? Or will teens and tweens be content with slightly older Android and iOS products that already have strong Facebook options?
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1) Amazing that it has 2.3 from the get go when much higher end devices still can't seem to get that down.
2) That FB button looks to be in a bad spot honestly.
3) Keyboard + FB button = status whore's dream.
**edit (see – seem)**
Yes, but will the kids love it?!?
I bet if it's free or near free and has a special data plan then the parents who buy kids their phones will love it. I can see girls who are in college liking it as well. I really hope ATT learns from the Kin pricing errors.
Yeah, it's a shame the Kin didn't have the data plan it was supposed to have. That would have shaken up the market.
Btw, it's much easier to get a new version of Android on a new phone. Updating a current phones has to go through three layers of testing and approval: hardware manufacturer, carrier, and the carrier's software partners.
Yes, this was the ChaCha.
Strange that you have so many Facebook problems on Android. I've never had the program crash on me on any of the phones I've used in the last year. I use the app several times a day too.
The app is just VERY slow, even on WiFi. The update that came 2 days ago killed just about everyone's FB app. I had to completely uninstall it after the update and install it fresh to get it to work. My friend has the same phone and that wouldn't even work on his. He is still without.
I find it is typically faster for me to get on the browser on my phone and pull up the desktop version of FB because the mobile site is so non-functional.
Haha. I had no idea there was a FB widget.
I tend to not use Widgets because I erase my phone so frequently (at least once a week with a new ROM) and Nandroid and Titanium Backups don't restore widgets, so I just don't even bother putting them on any of my pages.
Fantastic question. Hell, I have problems with the "Genius" button on T-Mobile's MyTouch phones. Perhaps I have an issue with buttons with non-standard functions like home, back, menu, etc.
Haha. Come to think of it in many of the reviews on the Android Market people's description of their phones generally included the words 'rooted'. Maybe that is the problem. But I have no desire to go back to 2.1 or 2.2 from 2.3.4.