Planet For Application Life Development Presents
Technology World
Explore and uptodate your technology skills...

Keep up with all your friends in real time with the new HTC FirstTM, featuring Facebook Home. See a steady stream of photos and posts from friends on a home screen that refreshes automatically. You'll never miss a moment with upfront notifications about events, calls and Facebook updates. Messages feature your friends’ profile pictures and you can chat while using other apps. Access your favorite apps and post right to Facebook on the customizable app launcher. With HTC FirstTM, you'll always stay connected to your friends.

The HTC First has launched in the US, and is set to come to the UK on EE this summer. Here we've reviewed the HTC First and Facebook Home on an AT&T handset in the US. The HTC First is one of the more intriguing Android phones we've had the chance to review. The result of a collaboration between HTC and Facebook, the First is the first phone to ship with Facebook Home preinstalled--doing away with the traditional Android home screen in favour of a continuous Facebook news feed.

Apps such as Gmail and Maps are hidden away, while the official Facebook and Messaging apps take centre stage. The phone is aimed at fans of the social network, but the First's unassuming design and modest price tag should prove enticing to anyone looking for a smartphone on a budget.

The phone lacks a user replaceable battery, and there's no MicroSD card slot, which means you're stuck with the 16GB of on-board memory for storing your apps, photos, music, and movies. Most won't care about these missing features, but it's something worth considering if you're someone that likes to have Michael Jackson's entire discography with you at all times. The First's 4.3-inch display packs an impressive 341 pixels per inch (ppi), making it sharper than the Retina display on the iPhone 5, though the screen looks unusually dark even on the brightest settings.

The First lacks the Beats audio software found on pretty much every other current HTC phone, and as a result, audio played through the phone's speaker sounds hollow. The speaker's location is also inconvenient--when holding the phone in landscape mode, your hand often covers it up, which leaves you with muffled sound while watching videos or playing games.

Features and Specifications