Look at the HTC Salsa in the image above. Do thine eyes deceive? Is that a Facebook button? No, good people, they do not. That is a dedicated Facebook button, for sharing your “content”, a word that boring people use for photos, videos and stuff that requires imagination/taste.
An unusual first, to be sure. But you know what? This Android phone would get the same score, with or without it.
Handsome build with added déjà vu
If you think the HTC Salsa looks familiar, well, you’d be right. HTC has resurrected one of its best designs ever, the unibody aluminium chassis of last year’s cruelly forgotten HTC Legend, and 14 months on, it still looks fantastic. It’s sturdy, curvaceous, resistant to smudges and oh so pocketable, with a thick speaker grille at the top that oozes class.
The lock button and 3.5mm audio ports are easy to reach on the top of the phone, and the whole affair seems thinner than its actual 12.3mm depth, in part due to the ever so slightly raised lip at the bottom of the HTC Salsa.
It also means the same curious innards, and a baffling trap door contraption for keeping the battery inside, but it’s not much of an issue when the stock battery runs for so long.
There are subtle differences beyond the new blue and purple hues, however. It isn’t quite unibody, and you can see the lines where the edges of the metal meet. The screen on the HTC Salsa measures a slightly wider 3.4-inches across, while the right hand side houses something we haven’t seen from HTC in a very long time: a dedicated camera shutter button.
And did we mention that there’s a front-facing camera for video chats? As far as we know, this is the first time this tech has appeared on a mid-range Android phone, so that’s a another tick in green ink. There’s also the Facebook button, but well, more on that shortly.
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Super screen?
If there’s a problem with the HTC Salsa, it’s the display. Longtime Electricpig readers will recognise this as a common problem with HTC smartphones: the company simply can’t get access to the same high quality screens as its big rival Samsung can anymore (Because, er, Samsung makes them).
It shows on the HTC Salsa, which has a respectable 480×320 resolution touchscreen capable of recognising multitouch, but rather washy colours. Viewing angles on the other hand are broad, and daylight visibility isn’t too bad, so we wouldn’t let it put you off this mid-range phone. It’s not as crushing a disappointment as it is on the HTC Sensation, and for a low price we’re just happy to have seamless pinch to zoom support.
Android, Sensified
At its core, the HTC Salsa runs Android 2.3 “Gingerbread”, the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system (2.3.3 if you must know). Atop that though, HTC has modified it with its “HTC Sense” software skin, which does a great job of making Android easier to use.
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We’ll focus on HTC Sense rather than Android itself, which we’ve gone into much detail on before (See our Google Nexus S review for the basics). In short, it too has changed little, and if you’ve owned a HTC Hero or HTC Legend before, the differences are almost solely cosmetic.
HTC Sense 2.1 on the HTC Salsa is still a shining example of how to merge your Facebook and phonebook contacts, and we love that when someone calls, you can see what they’ve been saying online, or even if it’s their birthday. It intelligently combines accounts of the same name (you can manually tweak everything also), and even lets you add a new number as a contact whenever you’re called by one.
There is the odd change however. The intelligent lock screen with customisable auto-launch app shortcuts that debuted on the HTC Sensation last month is in place here, as is the new lock screen call received screen, which requires you to drag down the answer or hang up icons into a bubble (unique, though not advantageous in any way).
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One other new addition to Sense on the HTC Salsa is a native Facebook Chat app. Now before you all point out that the Facebook Android app offers this already, allow us to point out that this version includes a homescreen widget, so you can see who’s online. It’s a thoughtful gesture and one we hope Facebook copies: it’s just a shame that your Facebook conversations don’t then appear in the People contact cards for your friends.
But few changes means HTC hasn’t addressed Sense’s pitfalls too – mainly the HTC Sense touchscreen keyboard, which simply isn’t as intelligent and responsive as Google’s own keyboard. Luckily, you can get that on the Android Market.
HTC Locations, HTC’s mapping service that’s available on more powerful phones such as the HTC Desire S and HTC Sensation, is also gone, and the swizzy menu animations and movie streaming Watch Service on the latter are nowhere to be seen here. Lastly, the HTC Sense launcher still crashes quite frequently, but restores itself very quickly.
All in all, it’s a charming Android experience for people more interested in messaging their mates than rooting and hacking their handset. So, most people then.
That blasted Facebook button
Look, let’s just say it: the Facebook button is by far the least interesting aspect of the HTC Salsa. It’s just a button that provides a couple of shortcuts.
Press it normally and you can quickly start typing a regular Facey B update, but use it in certain contexts and it pulls off other tricks. Hold it down and you can check into Facebook Places, or create a spot if one doesn’t exist where you are already.
Press it when it glows on web pages and photos and video you’ve just taken and you can quickly share these on Facebook – by far the most useful feature for most people, we think.
You can also use it to share Amazon links to what you’re listening to on the music player, but really, why would you inflict that on your friends? That’s called spam.
Now we can see how HTC thought a Facebook button would be a good idea, its appeal and how it would give a boost to its marketing efforts. In practice, unless you’re a real social network obsessive, it’ll only shave seconds off the time spent sharing on your phone already – don’t forget that Android already lets you share photos to Facebook with a touchscreen press.
But the good news is that it’s so small and unobtrusive, we wouldn’t let it sway you from picking up the HTC Salsa even if you don’t like Facebook.
Camera
In decent light, the HTC Salsa’s five megapixel camera actually turns out very pleasant, sharp results, and it’s nice to have a physical camera button for a change. The problem we noticed – on video as well as stills – is that it really struggles to adjust to changes in light, cloaking entire photos in shadows that simply aren’t there if you move too quickly.
The VGA video the HTC Salsa snaffles up is actually quite easy on the eye, and is easily uploaded to Facebook via the little button. Our only issue is the microphone doesn’t cope well with wind at all, as you can hear at the end of this clip.
Performance
Don’t go in expecting miracles, and the HTC Salsa will impress you with its performance. Call quality is clear, and the 800MHz CPU paired with 512MB of RAM mean there’s little sign of slowdown. But then, the CPU doesn’t support Adobe Flash video, so you’ll struggle to tax it anyway.
Battery life on the other hand, is nothing short of superb. After 37 hours of testing, with Wi-Fi, account syncing and GPS all on, we’re down to 16 percent. That’s right – we’re still going.
Of course, HTC stuffing a capacious 1520mAh battery inside the HTC Salsa does make you wonder who was on holiday when the much larger HTC Desire HD was being built. No matter: this is an Android phone you can use for two solid days, a very rare feat.
Verdict
Look, if you know you want a phone with a Facebook button, it’s this simple: get the HTC Salsa, or wait for the HTC ChaCha and its QWERTY keyboard (we’ll be reviewing it very soon).
For everyone else nonplussed about a dedicated button, just ignore it. It’s tiny, and the HTC Salsa is still a charming mid-range smartphone with great battery life. We’d simply choose on size: for around the same price, you can get this marvellously compact mobile, or last year’s epic and expansive Samsung Galaxy S. How big are your hands?
