Gadgetory

Facebook has created a brand new experience for Android I'm Tuscan all court from Siena this is ami from Facebook and this is the HTC first phone that comes pre-loaded with facebook home that is what facebook is calling its new android experience it isn't exactly the same as the app it's separate from the app but it does take over the home screen in a way that lets you interact with certain Facebook features front and center when you turn the phone on from the lock screen the first thing that you're going to see is a photo that's animated in the background it takes over the entire background you'll see it of your friend you might even see a picture of your own profile at the bottom so right away you can view the photos automatically or you can actually swipe through them double tap to like a photo and you'll see a very big thumbs up you can also view the comments and add a comment right from this cover fee you'll notice that the phone itself has three buttons at the bottom the circle button is actually the home menu there's also a back button and a menu button when you touch the profile photo it can take you back you can get to all of your apps or you can get to messenger messenger is kind of cool because it doesn't distinguish between what's a facebook chat and what is a text so in a way it kind of borrows from apples iMessage so the launcher is interesting because even though you can see all of your apps laid out you can save shortcuts to this app launcher and the app launcher kind of lays on top of the main image you can swipe up to see it you can also page through the launcher and you can have as many launcher pages with shortcuts as you want you simply press a drag to add a short cut to the launcher in this sense there are no traditional home screen so there's only the launcher and then of course the apps to get out you can always press the circle button or you can toss something down in a flick motion and that will get you back to your main screen there is support for notifications they will pop up onto the screen you can just swipe them a way to get rid of them you can tap to open the notifications and take a closer look this will of course work with notifications that come from other apps if you want to see anything else you can simply open up the app from the app launcher or from the main screen facebook has implemented a really interesting way to talk to people they're calling it chat heads yes chata heads so it's an icon an image of a friend kind of bubbles around and you can click and drag it to the sides if you want to reposition it and see it on a different part of the screen it will not go to the middle you can touch this chat ahead to see any messages that are in action to start a conversation to message through either text or through facebook chat you can tap again to close it and when you're done you can flick down to close the entire thing so you've got multiple messages open you can similarly flick down to close them all at once the screen and chat heads are very responsive it does feel a little bit like the digital version of tossing a soccer ball it's kind of fun the HTC first phone is a mid-range device it's got a 4.3 inch screen it's got a 5 megapixel camera on the back and it's got the sort of soft touch finish that you can see not a whole lot of extra details or accents on the device it will be exclusive to AT&T and it will cost a hundred dollars with a new two-year service agreement will also be available on April twelfth and you can pre-order it today so that's your very first look at the HTC first cone and Facebook's new facebook home for Android I've got to get all 44 cnet we're going to have much more on this coming up so stick with see that TV you