HTC First is now official! After lots of rumors and leaked images, HTC and Facebook have finally unveiled the smartphone yesterday. It’s not exactly similar to the HTC Status which came with a Facebook button so let’s see if the first Facebook Home optimized phone is ready to attract the Android users or not.

Specs and Features

The Facebook Phone will run a customized version of Google’s Android Jelly Bean titled as “Facebook Home” which is tightly integrated with Facebook to make it the “ultimate social phone”. As the leaks hinted earlier, the phone features a 4.3-inch display and 1280×720 display resolution-wise, a dual-core Qualcomm processor, a 5-megapixel rear camera, 1.6-megapixel front-facing camera, 1GB RAM and a 2,000mAh embedded battery that is expected to be non-removable. However, it’s not the hardware specs that we want to know mostly about the First, right?

Facebook Home

, a customized version of Android removes the usual backgrounds and homescreens of Android and fills them with updates from your Facebook friends and its own skin. Users will see the log in screen of Facebook when turning on the HTC First for the first time. This new operating system is a great move from Facebook and it can be also downloaded from Google Play Store for selected Android smartphones.

Your lock screen will show different pictures of your friends and from your album every time you open which is a great feature if you love browsing pictures uploaded by your Facebook friends. You will see a small bubble with your profile image on it on the lock screen that can take you to the app launcher, your last used app or to the Facebook messenger.

“Chat Heads” is an attractive feature of Facebook Home that shows a face of your friend in a little balloon when they send a chat message via Facebook or text. It will alert you when you are using an app and stays there. Users can just tap on the balloon to see the message without getting out of the app they were using. Other notable features of this ultimate social phone are- cover feed, attractive notifications system and app launcher.

Design

The First is a mid-range phone and is not the best phone you can expect from HTC design-wise. There is no “Beats Audio” logo on this model like other HTC phones. The phone is slightly bigger than the iPhone 5 and is 125.6mmx 64.93mm x 8.96mm in size and the back is made of plastic to give the phone a two-tone effect. The phone will be available in four different colors- red, pale blue, grey and white.

That’s all we know about the latest HTC phone. There is not much to talk about this phone, hardware-wise. The Facebook Home is the only notable feature of this smartphone and the customized Android OS looks attractive for those who are glued to social networks. The HTC First will be available on April 12th for just $99.99 in the US on AT&T only. You can click to pre-order one today.