Gadgetory

rumors of a facebook phone ran amok for ages but little did we know that Facebook's plans were much larger than a single phone instead the company launched a home replacement for Android Facebook home and HTC was the first to jump on that bandwagon I'm Taylor Martin this is pocket now and this is our full review of the HTC first the first thing you will notice about the HTC first is that the hardware and design are extremely minimal the sides and back are made of soft touch plastic as or the power button and the volume rocker and at 126 millimeters tall 65 millimeters wide 8.9 millimeters thick and 123 point 9 grams it is much smaller and more lightweight than most other android phones today it's a mid-range phone by design but the feel and level of finish on the first are more reminiscent of a premium phone it's solid in the hand and has a nice grippy feel to it and its modest 4.3 inch display is much more manageable than the horde of larger Android phones there is only one aspect of the hardware and design that we didn't like however the microUSB port is located just above the center point on the right side making it awkward to charge and use the phone at the same time for mid-tier device the HTC first specifications are fairly impressive it packs a 1.4 gigahertz dual-core Snapdragon 400 chipset one gigabyte of ram 16 gigabytes of pic storage a 5 megapixel camera with a 1.6 megapixel camera around front a 2,000 milliamp hour battery and AT&T LTE connectivity of all of its specifications the display is easily the most notable feature it measures only 4.3 inches diagonally but it bears a resolution of 720p for a density of 342 pixels per inch of the super LCD type it boasts vibrant yet still fairly accurate colors wide viewing angles and decent visibility and bright sunlight the contrast is passable but the blacks are still a little grey overall we have very few complaints as far as Hardware goes the HTC first is the first phone to come with facebook home pre-installed so when you first power the phone on and login to your facebook account your newsfeed will appear as your home screen the photos your friends share to facebook or cover photos if a status doesn't include a picture will serve as a temporary wallpaper you can continue to scroll through your newsfeed by swiping left or right and you can easily interact with each status double tapping anywhere on the home screen will like the current status jumping back to the application drawer is quick and simple to tap a blank area on the home screen and drag your profile photo over the apps icon or simply press the home button from there you can quickly open any application or check in two places or even share status or photo what sets Facebook home on the HTC first apart from any other device with facebook home installed our notifications and the Google search bar at the top the application drawer on the downloadable version of facebook home the notifications displayed on the lockscreen are only facebook notifications on the HTC first all system notifications meaning anything displayed in the notification shade appear in the facebook home notifications for avid facebook fans facebook home is easily the best and most visually pleasing way to consume your facebook news feed but it's a quick way to suffer from a Facebook overload and it has its drawbacks it's also worth mentioning that facebook home is still quite new and there are quite a few bugs that have yet to be ironed out fortunately there's a silver lining facebook home can be completely disabled and beneath it the HTC first runs an otherwise stock version of Android for 12 with snapdragons mid-tier chipset on board the performance on the HTC first certainly isn't mind-blowing but it definitely warrants some praise All Things Considered it scored quite well in synthetic benchmarks and in day-to-day performance it holds up quite well we must note however that there was noticeable lag and performance hiccups with facebook home enabled running the stock interface made the device run much more smoothly call quality on the HTC first was great the earpiece speaker is plenty loud even in noisy environments and the quality of audio was crisp we had no complaints from people on the other end having trouble hearing us also the loudspeaker for speakerphone was extremely loud and clear the first also runs on AT&T LTE network and it featured some of the fastest speeds we've seen to date we found battery life on the first to be decent likely thanks to a more efficient processor and a smaller display in normal usage a full day without a supplementary charge was possible but in head the battery managed to drain much more quickly in other words the battery life isn't necessarily bad but it could be better lastly the camera on the first is probably its worst feature the sensor is only 5 megapixels and pictures tend to lack sufficient detail it was quick to blow out whites and many images like proper contrast giving the effect of a milky photo when the camera was on point though we were able to take some very impressive photos with the first and color reproduction was spot-on however the times it was great or few and far between the HTC first although a mid-range device is a diamond in the rough the performance is better than we've seen out of any other mid-range phone the build quality is fantastic the display is gorgeous and it comes with software options either full on facebook home or the stock Android experience there are some compromises with the first however the camera isn't great the storage is quite limited and some might find the display to be too small others of course might find the smaller display just right we give the HTC first and 8 out of 10 that about does it so if you liked the video be sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe and follow us in all of the normal places google+ twitter and facebook at simply pocket now you can follow me on twitter at casper tech i'm taylor martin and i will see you next time the company instead launched a home blur the company instead released a facebook subscribe and stay tuned for more each tribe stay tuned for more HTC first coverage in the few