HTC First Facebook Phone Review: Why The Smartphone Was Doomed To Fail From the Start

The HTC First has hit a series of misfortunes, pointing toward an early death for the smartphone that has only been on the market for about a month.

After initially being offered by AT&T for $99, the price has been dropped to just 99 cents. And there have been rumors, reported by BGR.com, that the First has sold so terribly---only about 15,000 sets---that AT&T has already decided to discontinue the phone.

Today, Engadget reported that the First won't be sold in the UK and that pre-orders have been canceled. Facebook, due to bad customer feedback in the U.S., has "recommended holding off launching the HTC First" while they work to improve their software, according to the report.

So what gives? How has this handset become such a disaster in only one month? The answer is that for the first of its kind, the Facebook-integrated HTC was a weak effort to begin with.

High Anticipation

Before Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook Home, the android user-interface was designed to make the social network a centerpiece on smartphones and there had been a lot of rumors swirling around about the release, finally, of "the Facebook phone."

And what people expected that phone to be was not clear. It was an ideal---something that would bring Facebook into the mobile world and completely transform both that company and how users shared the world via social media. It would be everything to everyone. And although those expectations are, of course, absurd, they point toward the problem that the First has encountered.

It's just not enough of anything. It just seems like a neat, live wallpaper on a mid-range phone.

Hardware Issues

HTC, a company which is struggling right now in general, brought us the Facebook phone in the guise of the HTC First, the first---and at first, the only---smartphone to come with Facebook Home. But the phone was not a flagship for either Facebook or HTC. In fact, with the release of the impressively-built HTC One, the First seems like an afterthought---a worthily unimpressive successor to HTC's ChaCha, the 2011 phone that came with a Facebook that no one paid attention to.

Though it was released in 2013, the First only had a dual-core processor, a 2000 mAh battery and 16 GB of storage incapable of expansion. While it has a pretty nice 4.3-inch display, the point of social media is not only viewing, but creating the content that the user intends to share. And the camera came in at an unimpressive 5 megapixels, compared to the 13 megapixel cameras coming out on higher-end phones.

Software Issues

Facebook Home has some cool features, which would make it a great UI competitor to android UI software like Launcher Pro. Its Cover Feed has a beautiful full-screen image design for viewing Facebook updates and posts. Its Chat Heads feature integrates Facebook's message services with SMS text messages - all into small, non-invasive interactive avatars.

But that's about it. Otherwise, the Facebook phone is an Android smartphone, and a pretty unimpressive one at that. No stunning features like an integrated Facebook voice chat, no pervasive Facebook app-integration, and certainly no Facebook brand phone (though Zuckerberg always promised, despite the over-amplified rumors, that Facebook would never be making its own hardware).

The First is just not enough of Facebook, and not enough of a phone. And while a higher-end Facebook phone would never be as huge as the major players in the market, like the Galaxy 4 or the iPhone with better hardware and deeper Facebook integration, it could have been enough to entice rabid Facebook fans to spend the $350 (without contract) that the First was priced at. Instead, it looks like it's turning into a stumbling block for Facebook's mobile ambitions and another death knell for the already troubled HTC.