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Teen talk: HTC Status is a great Facebook and texting device

The HTC Status is a new phone on AT&T that has a dedicated Facebook button. My 15-year old daughter took it for a spin and really liked it for its intended purposes.
Written by Matthew Miller, Contributing Writer

I wrote up some first impressions of the HTC Status a couple of weeks ago and as I mentioned the display felt too cramped for me and I didn't think the device was targeted towards a user like myself. I decided to let Mal, my 15-year old daughter, take a look at it since she is both a Facebook fiend and rabid texter and that is really what the HTC Status is all about.

I asked Mal to email me her input and was surprised when she wrote up all of her thoughts on the HTC Status itself and sent them to me via Gmail. I guess if you have the right sized hands the HTC Status keyboard can be very functional and useful.

Mal's first impressions

I like the look and feel of the white and silver outer shell and think the Status would take a few drops and still be good to go. The keyboard is wide and I was able to type pretty fast on it with no practice, but think people like my dad with bigger thumbs may have problems with the small buttons. The screen was very bright and has good touch screen accuracy.

Thoughts after one week

The on screen buttons are very helpful, even with the small display and I found myself tapping on them often. I was expecting a bit more out of the Facebook button and Facebook appliction. The button allows you to update your status and upload a photo or immediately take a picture and upload it. I think that it is a convenient button for quick updates. I like getting to Facebook on the home screen after the HTC Status was unlocked. It has all features on Facebook, except tagging people in photos. The Facebook update stream, called Friend Stream on the home screen, is very useful and everywhere I went it updated immediatly. Also before you unlock the screen there are four different bubbles you may slide into the inner ring to open immediatly instead of going to the home screen. There is phone, mail, camera, and messages. Or you may just slide the ring up for home screen. When you slide right to the fourth home screen there is Facebook Chat and that is just like text messaging and is very easy and useful to use anywhere!

Mal's recommendations

The phone is great for teenagers or adults that are really into Facebook. It is a very nice smartphone and feels comfortable to hold, not very many flaws at all that I can point out. I would consider getting this phone if it was on T-Mobile and I really liked using since it is also not to big to fit in smaller pockets. Facebook and text messaging are great and thats what I used most. The one thing that could be improved is pictures and videos, since the quality was not very good at all. The battery life is excellent and I had great 3G coverage. Lastly you can never go wrong with an Android phone, the setup and speed won't let you down!

Matt's final thoughts

Mal and I both strongly agree that the HTC Status is a well built phone that feels good in your hands. The keyboard was not too cramped for her and it seems it will fit in well with the youth who text and use Facebook a lot. As Mal mentioned the camera was pretty poor and HTC should have done a bit better job with this since people like to post photos to Facebook, but not ones that look so bad.

You can pick up the HTC Status on AT&T and unfortunately for Mal there is no word if it will be coming to other carriers in the U.S. She is becoming quite a fan of the Android platform and I imagine that is what she may be moving into in the near future.

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